Through A Glass Darkly
by twinsais
Summary: Ken feels more and more fractured with each passing day after murdering Kase. He doesn't want to face the shadows in his soul, but Farfarello has his own ideas about what's good for him. Yaoi, series spoilers
1. Chapter One

He was dreaming. He knew he had to be, because in his dream, he was killing Kase, and Kase was already dead.

His claws ripped through the man over and over. He felt the compressed metal across his palm that controlled his bugnuks vibrate as the blades skated over ribs and then sank suddenly into softer tissue. He felt the abrupt rush of hot fluids over the leather of his glove, spilling over the cuff to trickle down the inside of his wrist, and heard the boneless thump of the body as Kase fell. He heard himself scream into the light rain, a terrible cry of rage and grief.

It was the only part of the dream that did not mesh with real life. In reality, when Kase had cursed him and died, Ken had merely stood there, eyes turned away from the body of the man who'd been his best friend for all of his young life and whispered, "I'm already in hell". It had been the only truth he'd been able to give Kase, the only thing he could think to say.

In the dream, he killed Kase over and over and over. When he woke to cold sweat and an aching head, he could still feel the phantom blood on his hands. He'd given up trying to scrub it away after several nights. It wouldn't go.

So he knew it was a dream, but that didn't help. He couldn't stop the infinite loop his nighttime visions were set on. They'd faded for a while when he'd been distracted by Yuriko, but after the confrontation with Yohji, after listening to his usually laid-back and elegant friend tell him in harsh and certain tones exactly what he was, he couldn't hold them off anymore, not even with the memory of her skin.

She deserved a happy life, but he was a murderer. He'd killed his best friend.

He woke gasping, as he did every other night, feeling the itch of congealed blood on his hands. This time it was real – his fingernails had dug into his palms hard enough to draw blood. Like a zombie, he staggered to the bathroom and ran cold water over the burning skin. It washed away the blood and eased the sting, but he couldn't help staring in mild horror at the little half-moon marks on his palms. It'd been over a month, and he was still having nightmares.

Ken Hidaka dried his hands on a ragged, but clean towel, and went back to bed. The moon shone through the window. He imagined the silver light piercing his body, turning him transparent, drawing him up to it and away from this life.

He did not go back to sleep.

X-X-X-

"Oi, Ken! Wake up… I think the lilies have had enough water," Omi chastised gently, disengaging Ken's hand from the hose.

Ken blinked and started, dropping the length of green rubber into Omi's hand. "Er… sorry, Omi," he murmured softly, palming the back of his neck in embarrassment. He looked down into a pair of wide blue eyes that seemed guileless and innocent and had to smile – Omi was just too cute when he worried.

"Ne, Ken-kun," the younger boy said slowly. "Are you all right? You've been distant lately, like your mind is a million miles away." He smiled wryly and offered the hose back.

Ken took it and shook his head. "I'm all right," he assured Omi softly. "Thanks. I was just… daydreaming. I've had a lot on my mind lately," he confessed, part of him twisting oddly at the notion of talking to Omi about the feelings that haunted him. It would be such a relief to tell, and Omi would understand – there was more to him than most people understood. He wasn't really as happy and carefree as he let on, so he wouldn't be shocked if he found out that Ken wasn't either.

Omi nodded sympathetically. "I know you have. But I know what will make you feel better. You have soccer practice in two hours, right? Why don't you go ahead and leave early? You can spend some time at the park. It's a beautiful day to be out," he said matter-of-factly, beaming at Ken triumphantly. "And you should have some time to yourself that you don't spend moping in your room."

Ken chuckled quietly. "Have I been moping?" he wondered, and shook his head. "All right, Omi. Are you sure you're all right by yourself?"

"Mm. Yohji will be down in an hour and I can take it by myself until then," he said confidently.

"Okay. Omi… thanks."

Omi turned on him with a smile that was brilliant, but almost sad. "It's nothing, Ken-kun. I understand. Feel better, all right? We need you."

Ken paused in midstep, blinking at Omi, who looked so sincere. But behind those bright blue eyes he saw a dark thing twisting, and his breath froze in his throat. Omi was a killer too, just as he was, but his admission of needing Ken was both frightening and touching. He managed a brief nod, then slipped away, untying his apron and going to change into his soccer clothes and collect his ball before he went to the park.

Omi hadn't been exaggerating about the splendor of the day. The sun shone brightly and there was a nice breeze, and plenty of flowers were still blooming in the early summer warmth, sweetening the air with their scent. He chose to walk to the soccer field even though it was a little over two miles, enjoying the atmosphere. He stopped on the way at the small ice cream parlor and got a mint chip cone, and ate it as he walked. With every touch of the cool mint on his tongue, he thought he felt his heart lighten – it was impossible to be depressed on a day like today. The sun banished the shadows.

The soccer fields used for the community children's teams were tucked away in a large, rather nice park called Midori Gardens. There were also a few tennis courts and a path for bicycles and joggers, as well as some truly impressive landscaping. The south part of the park had been let go a bit, as it bordered a set of apartments, but the rest of it was very nicely maintained.

He paused as the sound of jack-hammering reached his ears and he turned a corner as the scent of cement dust rose thick around him. Construction blocked his usual route. He glanced both ways, then shrugged and continued on. He could come up from the south side, though it wasn't a way he normally took. He had plenty of time, after all.

A few turns later, he stepped past the low wall marking the boundary of the park and into the gentle shade of the trees. His sneakers scuffed the asphalt and he tossed the paper from his now-devoured ice cream into a nearby trashcan, humming quietly to himself as he sauntered along the jogging path. The path wound through the park, taking him past lovely stands of flowers and several benches that held other people who, like him, had taken time off to enjoy the day. He was still humming as he rounded a large statue of the smiling Buddha and passed someone reading on the bench tucked away behind it, out of the way of the others sharing the park. He continued past even as a spark lit in his brain and snapped him back to full awareness.

Someone with white hair.

His foot hit the asphalt heavily and he stopped for a minute, trying to recall what he'd seen, slowly turning and expecting every minute to meet death face to face, but he was alone on the path save for the form huddled on the bench, bent over a book. Ken's eyes fixed on the book. It was a paperback, held in pale, slender fingers marked with scars and calluses. He followed those fingers up to muscled forearms and a plain white t-shirt stretched over pointed shoulders and a narrow chest, a delicate, scarred chin dipped in concentration, the black strap of an eye-patch disappearing into frost-white hair haphazardly cropped close to a delicately-shaped head.

Farfarello.

For an eternal moment, Ken literally could not believe what he was seeing. But slowly, he unfroze, though he continued to stare. The Schwarz madman didn't look up or in any way acknowledge his presence, but merely continued to read, one hand quietly turning a page. His body language spoke of total absorption until, without raising his head, he said, "It is very rude to stare."

Ken gawked. He couldn't help it. The last time he'd seen Farfarello, he'd been wounded in a way that hurt Ken to remember, his back scarred by the acid he'd almost used to murder a nun with whom Ken had almost been friends, his chest bleeding from Omi's darts, and several long gashes across his side and short cuts on his face from Ken's bugnuks. Looking closely, Ken could see faint white lines on Farfarello's chin where those cuts had been made. Not scars, but almost-healed cuts. That was wrong, he thought dumbly. Those cuts should have scarred, and shouldn't have been even close to healed. There was a patch of irregular skin on the man's bicep where the acid had melted his flesh, a wound that should have left far more damage than that.

Farfarello looked up, fixing a single, tiger-gold eye on Ken as he stood with his chin hanging, and tilted his head in an almost cat-like manner. He said nothing, merely stared, and Ken felt for a brief and terrifying instant that it wasn't right – you could drown in that gaze, pupil a pinprick of black in a sea of gold. It made Ken's hackles rise, made him feel like running for the nearest cover and cowering there. It was an animal gaze, a predatory one. With a tremendous effort of will, he shook himself free and clenched his fists.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, the soccer ball dropping to the ground, forgotten, and rolling toward the bench as he took a threatening step in the madman's direction.

Farfarello ignored him entirely, his attention caught by the ball. It bounced gently toward him, bumped against the leg of the bench, and stopped. Slowly, he leaned over and put a hand on it, and Ken stopped advancing, confused by his opponent's actions.

Holding the ball between his hands, Farfarello lifted it and settled it in his lap. His fingers crept over it, mapping it curiously, and Ken was struck with the sudden, ludicrous thought that maybe Farfarello had never seen a soccer ball before. After all, he was insane… Schwarz would have been stupid not to keep him locked up where he couldn't exercise his obvious destructive tendencies. He blinked when the madman leaned down and rubbed his scarred cheek against the grass-stained, weathered leather.

"A… ano…" he began, not really sure how to say 'please give me back my ball' to someone so obviously unhinged.

Farfarello uncurled and rose in one unbelievably graceful motion, so fluid Ken would have missed it if he'd blinked. He hissed and stepped back slightly, ready in case of an attack, but all Farfarello did was turn his hand over, dropping the ball on the ground, and trapping it with his foot. His eyebrows were drawn together in vague puzzlement, and he prodded the ball with his toe a couple of times before giving it a firm swat with the side of his foot – his bare foot, Ken noted distantly – that sent it bouncing straight back to Ken. Years of training had him reacting without thinking and he trapped the ball easily under one foot, still staring at Farfarello, who was now staring back at him with a smirk lurking in the corners of his mouth.

"… Thank you," Ken said lamely.

"You're welcome," he returned in a slightly sing-song tone. His accent was strange to Ken's ears, oddly lyrical. The bizarreness of the situation made Ken feel an inexplicable urge to burst out laughing. He quelled it.

"What are you doing here?" he asked again, quietly but firmly, staring Farfarello in the eye belligerently.

Farfarello appraised him for a long moment. "Reading."

"Reading what?" Ken wondered. He hadn't intended to ask that, but it had seemed the next logical question and had slipped out before he could stop it.

Farfarello turned and lifted the book from the bench, turning it over so his place would be held. "Wolves of the Calla," he said simply.

Ken had never heard of it, and he was beginning to feel dizzy from wasted adrenaline. "… Oh."

Farfarello glanced up at him, that single golden eye piercing, like a hawk's. "I like books in English. I can't read Kanji very well."

Well, that made sense, Ken realized in some dim, distant part of his mind. Farfarello was obviously not a native to Japan, and in Ireland, English and… what was the other one called? He knew there was another one… would have been his first languages. Japanese, he would have picked up later, which explained why when he spoke, he always sounded so formal.

"What are you doing here?" Farfarello wondered, startling Ken out of his reverie.

"Wha… I…" Ken's mind moved fast. He couldn't tell Farfarello, of all people, that he coached a children's soccer team at this park. That would be nearly as bad as handing him the address of the flower shop. "Taking a walk," he answered defensively. "What do you mean, 'what am I doing here'? I have a perfect right to be here."

"So do I," Farfarello pointed out, and Ken's mouth snapped shut. That was true. The madman tilted his head back, letting the dappled sunlight play across his delicately sculpted features and smirking, showing a hint of teeth. "Are you going to attack me, white kitten?" he wondered musically. "You can, if you like. I would enjoy breaking your body at the feet of the false prophet."

"Aren't you going to attack me?" Ken wondered cautiously. Not that he wanted him to… hell, perhaps he shouldn't give the man ideas.

Farfarello actually took a moment to consider that, head tilting thoughtfully as he weighed the pros and cons. Ken could almost see his life being balanced against a feather, and shifted his stance… who knew what insignificant bit of information would decide whether he lived or died? Because he had no illusions – he could hurt Farfarello, but Farfarello didn't feel pain, and he would tear Ken apart before the Weiss assassin had a chance to get more than one hit in.

"Would you like me to?" he wondered.

Ken eyed him. "Well… no."

He nodded slowly, and sat back down on the bench. "As you like. I want to read today," he said idly, picking up his book.

Ken stared at him for a moment before rousing himself. "Do you… come to this place often?" It was dangerously close to the flower shop, and if it was close to Schwarz's headquarters as well, that could be a very bad thing.

"When I can," Farfarello said simply. "I like this place." He tipped his head back, gazing at the leaves above him. "It is good quiet."

Not sure whether it was a language difficulty or simply an insane man's reasoning, Ken repeated, "good quiet?"

"When I am at home, I am often restrained and left in my room," Farfarello explained matter-of-factly. "It is quiet in my room. That is a dead quiet. I do not mind it, but I do not like it. This is a good quiet, because it is not really quiet. There are many small sounds. They say that the world is still here."

Ken swallowed hard, wondering if he should be worried that the man was making perfect sense to him. He had spent a lot of time lying awake in his room recently, staring at the ceiling, in the dead quiet hours of the night, when only the sound of a car passing on the street outside reminded him that he was still part of a larger world, not totally alone in his private prison.

"Why do they… do that?" he wondered, thought he was fairly sure he already knew the answer. Still, morbid curiosity propelled him – he took a step closer to Farfarello, who showed no signs of becoming aggressive anytime soon. Was he on medication? "Restrain you?"

"Because if they do not, I will go off by myself to have fun, and The Oracle will be angry. He feels my fun is a security risk. If I cannot go out, I will have fun with myself. Oracle does not mind this, but it makes Prodigy very nervous and sometimes…" he flexed a hand idly, causing the veins to stand out in his wrist. "I cut too much and it does not heal easily. So they restrain me to make me stop, and they leave me there, because it is easier than taking responsibility for someone as difficult as me." He smirked distantly.

Ken felt vaguely sick. He could picture Farfarello with one of his precious knives in his hand, slicing deeply into his forearm, rocking back and forth and crooning gently as blood spilled over him, and he had seen what the Irishman had done to some of his victims. Farfarello's idea of fun fell more under the category of rabid mutilation.

"Couldn't you just… not do that?" he wondered, taking another step toward Farfarello. "Why would you do it, anyway? It can't be fun to hurt yourself, really," he insisted.

Farfarello rubbed his thumbs along the pages of his book with a gentle rasping sound, twisting his head to eye Ken evenly. "Don't you ever want to?" he murmured. "Don't you feel the hurting inside, so deep, and want to let it out? You are wracked by guilt for the weight of a thousand sins. Don't you ever want to be punished?"

"You don't care about sin," Ken shot back, eyes narrowing as part of him curled up to defend itself against those pointed words. "You like what you do. I've seen it… what you do to them, you couldn't do it if you didn't enjoy it."

"No," Farfarello agreed. "I did not say that was my reason."

"Then what is it?" Ken demanded, feeling frustrated. Nothing about this conversation was going the way he tried to make it go.

"Perhaps I will tell you another time," Farfarello told him.

Ken blinked. "I… another time?"

"Your children practice their game here," Farfarello said simply. "You come here three days of every week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday."

Ken felt his blood turn cold and his teeth clench. "You… know that?"

"I like this place," was the musical reply. "It is my place. The others do not know it. I will not tell them," he said, offering Ken a conspiratorial sort of smile that looked extremely out of place on his exotic features. "I do not want them to spoil my place with their games. I do not care about playing games with you," he told Ken.

"So…" Ken felt flummoxed.

Farfarello spoke in the patient tones of someone lecturing a slow child. "So, I want to come here. It is a nice place to read and no one bothers me. You will still come here because you want to teach the children to play football. So at some time, you will see me again. But whether you speak to me or not is your choice."

Ken nodded slowly, raking a hand through his hair. "I… all right. But you're Schwarz," he protested weakly. "You're our enemies. It's just… strange to not fight."

"And on the seventh day, He rested," Farfarello said solemnly.

Ken couldn't quite hold back a chuckle. "Day off… all right. I guess I can buy that. But…." He thought about threatening Farfarello to keep him away from his kids, then realized that was pointless. Farfarello didn't care about his kids – Farfarello didn't even care about him. He was here to read a book, which, for some reason, Ken was having trouble accepting. "Nevermind," he said sheepishly. "Er… goodbye."

"Good afternoon," Farfarello said politely.

Ken couldn't bring himself to turn his back on Farfarello until he was around the bend and out of sight of the white-haired assassin, and even then, he jumped at small noises. He moved as if in a daze. Could the sun really be shining and the birds singing, still, even though he'd looked death in the face? Admittedly, Farfarello hadn't seemed to be in a killing mood, but none the less, he was the most dangerous person Ken had ever met. And it was just so surreal….

The happy shouts of children snapped his attention back to the moment, and he went to join a few of his team members who had come early to play around, forgetting for the moment the sight of white hair and that single, burning golden eye.

When Ken passed through the park again, hours later, on his way back to the shop, Farfarello was gone.

X-X-X-


	2. Chapter Two

The next day was slow. Ken moved sluggishly, thanks to nightmares and strange dreams, many of them involving the Schwarz madman, which kept him awake. He didn't WANT to be thinking of Farfarello in the small hours of the night, but he found banishing him from his mind was impossible – even when he fell asleep, he dreamed of a handsome young boy with platinum hair, whispering urgently to him. The words were muffled and Ken couldn't understand them, but the youth seemed to be trying to tell him something very important. Then Ken had woken up.

Now, he sat at the table in the flower shop, watching Aya rub the same spot on the glass display case that he'd been rubbing for the last hour. All of them were distracted. Some strange things had been happening lately. Young people suddenly losing control of their base impulses and throwing themselves to their deaths, sometimes after attacking others in the vicinity. The police were baffled, as were Omi and Yohji, who had witnessed a similar incident earlier that day. They had seen a girl run into the street and die under the wheels of a car. They were shaken, but they had seen death, and he was not worried about them. His attention was caught by a sudden noise – the bell over the shop door jingled, and Omi's voice dispelled the remnants of his daydream.

"Sakura-chan!" he cried happily.

Aya looked away.

"Um… Aya…" Sakura mumbled, and Yohji, ever on the woman's side, prodded him.

"Oi, Aya, she wants to talk to you," he said pointedly. "We're not busy, so why don't you go ahead?"

Aya put the rag down and walked toward the door. From the dismay on Sakura's face, it was clear that she thought he was going to walk out. But then, suddenly, his voice stirred the stillness… low and somewhat unwilling. "There's a quiet café down the street. Would that be all right?"

Ken's heart panged when he saw Sakura's smile. The girl was setting herself up for heartbreak and he knew it – Aya was a cold bastard, who refused to allow time for anything that sidetracked him from finding his missing sister. He watched them walk away with a dull sense of foreboding.

"Ah, young love," Yohji gushed, but Omi didn't look nearly so rapturous. His face was concerned, and Ken caught his eye, seeing his own feelings reflected there. Omi understood. Sakura knew too much, and was a security risk, but she was a sweet girl who deserved better. Aya would distance her from them. He was good at driving people away.

Omi broke Ken's gaze and left the shop abruptly, and Ken glanced back down at the table. A customer came in on Omi's heels and Yohji greeted her enthusiastically, making an attempt to talk her into a spray of irises.

Aya returned a bit later, Omi about an hour after that, looking stormy. They didn't see Sakura again that week.

X-X-X-

Ken eyed Omi's computer screen with misgiving.

"Wunder X will rock your soul," Aya was reading in monotone. "Techno music. It's popular these days." Strange chords and strains filled the air, and Ken felt a sudden itch behind his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, but suddenly the pain was excruciating. He pressed a clenched fist against his forehead, vision blurring as he heard Yohji groan. Omi cried something, and Aya replied sharply, and then everything went black.

He was floating alone in blackness, naked and cold. He tried to curl up to warm himself, but his body responded sluggishly. It was like moving while encased in wet concrete. His head still burned, and he felt an incredible energy housed within his chest, making him want to tear up trees and smash down mountains, destroy something, kill someone.

He tried to scream in protest, but he had no voice.

"Ken."

He turned with agonizing slowness toward the sound of the voice and heard himself whimper. No…

"Ken," Kase said more insistently, drawing closer like the ghost he was. "Ken, why did you kill me?" he wondered, tears of blood streaming down his face. He had never been handsome. Kase's strong point had been his brains. "I never meant to hurt you!" he cried, clutching with blood-covered hands at Ken's shoulders. "Couldn't you see that? Why did you kill me, Ken, WHY? We were friends... but you tore me open, and look at me now!" Kase was shaking, and Ken realized he was laughing. He tried to push his former friend's hands from his shoulders, but he had no strength. "LOOK!" Kase demanded, and Ken felt his chin tipping down against his will, his eyes going to Kase's torso. It was torn, flaps of ragged flesh hanging from the edges of the rip, intestines spilling out. They quivered as Kase moved, and Ken felt very sick. "You did this, Ken," Kase screamed, shaking Ken now, accusing. "YOU! I'll never let you go," he snarled, "I'll haunt you forever! You took my life! You took EVERYTHING from me! I'll drag you down with me, I'll make you wish you were dead, I'll…."

Ken closed his eyes and screamed silently, trying to curl in on himself, trying to make the apparition go away. He had no strength, no speed, no claws with which to defend himself this time, only his mind, which chanted _make him stop, make him stop, make him stop._

"You can't make me stop." Nails dug into his shoulders and he felt his own blood mix with the cooling fluid on Kase's hands. "You're not strong enough. You can't really kill me where it counts!"

_Help me,_ Ken thought, his mind strangely, eerily clear. _Someone, help me. I'm dreaming. Someone wake me up. Someone… kill him for me… I can't do it… I can't… I CAN'T!_

"You can't, you can't," Kase mocked, clinging to Ken, pressing the length of his body against his. "You're too weak! You're a murderer wracked by guilt, and as long as you have guilt, I'll never die! You will never kill me, Ken, you'd have to be more than just a murderer to do that. You'd have to be…."

Ken's eyes snapped open.

Kase stopped in mid-tirade and lurched oddly forward.

There was a moment of perfect silence, when Ken met Kase's gaze with equal shock and incredulity. Then the other man began to fall away from him, toppling backwards, grasping hands releasing their hold.

"Ken…" he whispered. "You don't… understand… I hated you, but I …loved you… too…."

"It is the worst of all curses," said a familiar cool, melodic voice.

"What is?" Ken heard himself whisper as cold blood trickled over his skin, making it crawl in disgust.

Farfarello smiled faintly at him as he yanked his spear from Kase's corpse. "Hating those you love."

Ken looked into that amber eye and felt his sanity breaking. He couldn't hold the madman's gaze or he'd become mad. With a supreme effort of will, he tore his eyes away, letting them fall on the corpse at Farfarello's feet.

It was no longer Kase, but Ruth.

"_It is the worst of all curses, hating those you love."_

"But you killed her willingly," he protested. "Didn't you? Or did she really just get in the way when you were trying to kill me?"

"She was a willing sacrifice," Farfarello replied. Suddenly, he was no longer a killer clad in violet and black, but a young boy in a checkered shirt and school pants. "She died for her own sins, as we all shall die."

"She lied," Ken protested, "I know she lied, but she was afraid. When she told you the truth the first time, you killed them all! She was a good, kind woman who wasn't afraid of anything, and you destroyed her, and called her a fool! She died LOVING YOU!"

"She died with hope in her eyes," said the child, Jei, staring down at the corpse with mild sadness in his bright yellow eyes. "She wasn't afraid because she knew she'd go to Heaven. Maybe she was right. But you and I… we will, both of us, reside in Hell one day. Are you going to preempt judgment, Hidaka Ken?" he wondered, advancing on Ken where he floated, and suddenly he was Farfarello full grown, clad in jeans and a t-shirt, feet bare, as he'd been in the park. "Are you going to make a hell of earth as well?"

"I don't know!" Ken was afraid. He'd seen what Farfarello could do to a person, things he never wanted to see again, scenes that sometimes haunted him in his darkest nightmares. "I don't know. No. I want to be happy. I want something else, I never wanted this life, I didn't have any choice! I died, don't you understand? In that fire I DIED!"

"All who are born, die," Farfarello told him softly, standing before him calmly. "You and I, kings and paupers, saints and sinners too. But you are not dead now. You are asleep, and it is time for you to wake up. So, wake up, Siberian kitten," he murmured, placing a hand on him, slender, scarred fingers spreading to cover his chest. "WAKE UP."

Ken woke up. He was propped in the easy chair in the mission room, his neck stiff from being tilted at an odd angle. Next to him, Yohji was draped unceremoniously across the couch, and Aya hovered over Omi's shoulder as they both stared at the computer and talked in hushed voices. He groaned quietly, bringing their attention to him, and rubbed at his neck.

"Ken-kun!" Omi exclaimed. "Are you all right? How do you feel?"

Ken took a moment to figure out the answer to that question. Aya's violet gaze bored into him as he searched himself. Did Aya know he could feel the tiny cracks in his soul spreading? That they crept upwards and outwards like the roots of trees and crumbled his sanity bit by bit?

No. Aya cared only for his sister.

"I'm fine," he assured Omi gently. "Tell me what's going on.

Yohji woke up shortly after the beginning of Omi's explanation. This music, by the artist Wunder X, contained frequencies designed to confuse the human brain and drive those who listened to it insane. It was not 100 effective, but definitely dangerous. Only he and Yohji had been affected by it.

"This CD is sold by Indies," Yohji commented. "The distributor is fictitious."

"And the artist as well," Ken ascertained.

There was a footstep on the stair. "We know who it is," Birman said.

Ken felt the stone in his gut grow colder.

X-X-X-


	3. Chapter Three

"_I'm in, but isn't there any way to just have him arrested?"_

After that dream, the idea of killing again left a sour taste in Ken's mouth.

"_If he claimed it was all coincidence, we wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on."_

It didn't matter, did it? He'd opted in, as he always did. Ken the dependable. He hadn't been the one to kill the target, Aya had, and Sakura had seen him – now they were wondering whether she was a liability. A sweet, innocent girl like that, a liability!

Ken had serious trouble not hating himself, sometimes.

Schreient had been there, and Ken mused on this as he walked the cracked, warm sidewalk toward the park. He had no idea what the sudden reoccurrence of those four women in their lives might mean, only that the sight of them had kindled a rage in his mind that frightened him. Fortunately, they had not stayed to fight. The target had been more important, and he had been destroyed. And now Ken… Ken… he was confused. It felt like all he could do to put one foot in front of the other. The construction was still going on, so he veered away.

He had passed the Buddha before he remembered why he should be avoiding the south end of the park.

He paused and looked back, suddenly expecting – no, hoping – that Farfarello was there. Maybe Ken could ask him about Schreient, see what their involvement was in this, find out something of Eszet's plans….

Farfarello wasn't there.

Ken didn't understand the sinking feeling in his heart. After all, he shouldn't want to see the Schwarz psycho, really. One moment of lucidity did not redeem the man for a lifetime of murder. But Ken almost felt… he almost felt….

"You look disappointed."

He turned so fast he lost his balance. It didn't matter. A pale, scarred hand on his shoulder held him. He looked up into a single amber eye.

"You wished to speak with me, Siberian?"

"Jei." He couldn't help it. It slipped out. Ruth's voice, all the things she had said, had been heavy on his mind of late, and that dream, with Farfarello's childhood self in it, had reappeared during his nighttime sleep. He realized his mistake instantly. Farfarello's other hand came up and Ken tried to jerk back, but he was too slow.

Farfarello took his other shoulder and set up back on his feet. "You speak to a ghost," he told Ken matter-of-factly. "Jei has been dead for these sixteen years. He will not answer you."

Ken spent a moment wondering why he wasn't dead, then dismissed it as unimportant. "G-gomen," he murmured, not sure why he was apologizing. Something in the madman's face seemed to require it. He looked patient, but vaguely affronted. "Farfarello."

Farfarello nodded and took a step back, head twisting, birdlike, as he craned his neck to look up at the trees. It was a slightly cloudier day, and the sunlight did not make magic patterns as they had the last time they had met here. He was wearing loose black cargo pants, Ken noticed, and a dark green t-shirt with English script on it. Ken couldn't read English.

"What does that say?" he wondered, then silently cursed himself. How was it that every time he ran into Farfarello, he forgot who he was talking to?

"Kiss me, I'm Irish," Farfarello replied, utterly deadpan. Ken gaped for a moment, and Farfarello turned his gaze back to him, shrugging once. "Schuldich gave it to me."

"Er… I'm not going to kiss you," Ken said, not understanding.

Farfarello merely looked at the trees again. He did not seem to deem that worthy of a reply.

"Ano," Ken murmured, stepping in closer to him. It would have seemed like a suicidal move, but Farfarello seemed so calm right now, so distant, so… he didn't have a word for it. He was something OTHER. He existed in a world Ken couldn't comprehend. Besides, he didn't want this conversation to be overheard. "Are you allowed to talk to me?"

"God makes laws," Farfarello told him. "And man makes laws. If I feel free to disobey the laws of God, why should I heed the laws of the Oracle, who is a man?"

"Doesn't he punish you?"

"To the best of his ability," Farfarello said. "But he can do nothing to me that I have not already endured. Are you allowed to talk to me?" he inquired suddenly, golden eye sharp. "Will Kritiker punish you?"

"They would if they knew about this," Ken said softly. "I should be… I don't know, trying to kill you right now, I suppose."

"Then try," Farfarello invited. Ken looked him over briefly, doubt showing clearly on his face. He couldn't see any evidence that Farfarello was armed.

"No," he decided.

"Why not?" Farfarello's voice was almost childlike in its inquisitiveness, and Ken looked away.

"I don't like to kill," he murmured.

Farfarello shook his head. "That is only half true," he said mildly.

Ken's head jerked up. "NANI?"

"I said…."

"I know what you said!" Damn. He could hear the desperation in his voice. Why did the conversation have to turn back to HIM? "I… I thought you didn't lie."

"I do not," Farfarello told him, eye narrowing and lips twisting in sadistic amusement. Ken saw a glint of the Farfarello he knew, the mad psychopath, and he tensed. "But you do. You lie to yourself. Self-deception is the worst of all deceptions. It gives us an illusion of false reality that can be fatal or damning, or both."

"I don't LIKE killing," Ken growled under his breath, fist clenching. "I hate it."

"Ken Hidaka hates killing," Farfarello told him, head tilting. "But the tiger lusts for blood. There is a more essential nature to you underneath the peaceful big-brother who likes children and soccer. But that is normal."

"What do you know about normal?" Ken wondered harshly, but Farfarello seemed unwilling to take the bait.

"I know that man is a being of two natures," he said, "the fleshly nature and the spiritual nature. The spiritual nature is pure, but the fleshly nature hungers for the things of the world, the things which are corrupted and wicked. And sometimes the fleshly nature remembers its commonality with beasts and devils, and hungers for things of hell, also. Paul did not address this," he said in a mildly disapproving tone.

Ken blinked. He hadn't understood most of that. "What are you talking about?"

"I am talking about the difference between the flesh of which you are made, and the spirit by which you are animated," Farfarello said with sudden ferocity, stepping toward Ken, his hands still loose at his side, but his entire frame filled with a graceful, coiled sort of power. He was skinny, Ken realized, but he was STRONG. "The flesh of which you are made came from the earth. It is the animal side of you. The side that hunts and kills. But the spirit which animates you came from GOD. It is a spark of divinity within you that is your life and breath. It is holy… or was once holy, but it was corrupted by the flesh. The spirit feels and knows, but the flesh hungers and wants. And the combination is man, who has both animal lust, and the intelligence to discern ways to satisfy it. For we know the difference between good and evil," Farfarello murmured, and Ken realized the madman was taller than him by a good four centimeters. "And we are made in His likeness, more potent than angels or demons, with the potential to be better – or worse – than either."

"I don't understand," Ken said softly. Farfarello was raving, he thought absently, he had to placate him somehow or he wouldn't leave this spot alive. "I'm not into religious things."

"It is simple," Farfarello said just as quietly, and his voice was soothing, musical, making Ken forget the outside world to concentrate on it. Madness? Who in hell had first thought Farfarello was mad? He had too much charisma for his own good, but was he really mad? "There is Hidaka Ken, and there is Siberian. Spirit and Flesh. You say you do not like to kill, but that is only a half-truth – Hidaka Ken does not like to kill, but Siberian LOVES it."

Oh. So there it was. Ken was having trouble breathing. He should protest that, he thought, but Farfarello's eye had captured his and staring into that single golden orb, it felt like all the veils were stripped away, like the other man could see to the depths of his soul and what he found there amused him. There was no hiding, no lying, not even for his own sake. Deep inside his soul, the tiger recognized its own and growled.

"You know," he heard himself saying nonsensically, "the Siberian is also a breed of tame housecat."

"No cat is truly tame," Farfarello told him, smirking darkly. "Every cat is a predator, and a cruel one. They hunt when they are not hungry, hurt other creatures out of curiosity, and torment their food even when they do not intend to eat it. They hide sharp talons in padded paws and twitch their tails lazily, and all the time they watch you, they are sizing you up. Is it evil to be a predator? Is it wrong?"

"It's wrong if you're a human," Ken insisted, "And you know better. There are better ways."

"In Paradise, there was a better way for all creatures, but The Fall brought with it hunger and appetites for the flesh of fellow creatures. Sin, then, is not restricted to man alone, but covers the world in which he lives. All we do affects everything around us, is it not so?"

"I… suppose."

"So, then," Farfarello followed up, circling Ken slowly, "if a predatory nature came upon the beasts when sin entered the world, is such a nature not related to sin and therefore, by association, sinful?"

"I don't…."

"So being a predator IS wrong," Farfarello concluded. "It is evil. It is as wrong and evil for a praying mantis to eat an aphid as it is wrong and evil for you to kill Dark Beasts as it is for me to kill His flock. In the eyes of God, all sin is equal, and the world, including the dumb beasts, is damned."

Ken felt dizzy. "What's the point of this?"

"The point," Farfarello said softly, circling back around to the front so Ken could see him – he had not been turning with the psychopath, he realized. He had presented him his unguarded back. What in the hell was wrong with him? "The point is that we are not so different. You and I, Weiss and Schwarz, Farfarello and Siberian. The line separating our souls, and our actions, is thin, and red, and fragile. It is the line of motive, but motive is subjective and inconstant. In many ways that matter, we are the same."

Ken shook his head. "No. No, we're different from you. You try to hurt people. We want to keep people safe. We do this so good people can live without fear and be happy."

"But they do not live without fear," Farfarello pointed out. "And they are not happy. So, what good do you do? Your mission is to prevent pain, but you don't understand the nature of it. Pain is a state of grace!"

"You think that because you don't feel any," Ken retorted, and from the look on Farfarello's face, he knew he'd scored a hit.

He wished he hadn't.

"You are right. I am cast out," Farfarello agreed quietly, his voice a soft study in mutiny. "But it goes further than that. However, I think I have showed you enough for today."

"Showed me enough? What did you show me? Nothing you say makes sense!" Ken protested.

"It makes perfect sense, because it is perfect truth," Farfarello contradicted him. "I am showing you truth. At the moment, you refuse to accept it because the sweet lies you have heard all your life still clamor inside you and drown it out. But when I have shown you enough, they will one by one be thrown into silence and you will SEE, and see truly."

"I don't want to see the world the way you see it," Ken told him firmly, fist clenching. "I wouldn't want to live in a place that twisted."

"I am insane because I realized the truth all at once," Farfarello told him. "Twice, this has happened to me, and twice my world has been shattered. Why should you be exempt? You should be grateful. I am exposing you slowly. You will not shatter as I did. Are you afraid of going mad?"

"I'm not going mad," Ken ground out through gritted teeth.

Farfarello eyed him quietly. "All of you are," he replied eventually. "Some faster, some slower, some more directly, but you are all going insane. You think it is the strain of killing that unbalances your mind, darker urges warring with the light. But that is not the reason. The reason you go insane is the lies you tell yourself to hide from yourself what you really are."

"Like you lied to yourself for sixteen years?" Ken shot back.

Farfarello merely nodded. "Yes. Like that. Consider it." He offered Ken a crooked sort of smile. "Don't I seem saner now?"

Ken paused. He considered it. He shook his head. "I don't really know what you were like before. I only saw you when you were on missions. We had to fight then."

"Yes," Farfarello agreed, "but what you saw was almost all there was. I had lost myself in my own delusion, but part of me knew the truth. The screaming between them drowned out everything else until the lies were suddenly silenced. Yes, the shock of it fractured me more. But now, I can also hear myself think. And," he said gravely, "it is a great improvement."

"I'm sure," Ken said faintly.

Farfarello became distracted by the fluttering of a bird in one of the trees that sent a few leaves drifting to the ground. It gave Ken a moment to catch his breath and break the trance the last few minutes had held over him. What the hell had he gotten himself into? His stomach was twisting, and he felt like he might be ill, but he held it down, rubbing it idly with one hand through his soccer jersey.

"Do you still hate God?" he wondered when he found his tongue again. Farfarello had prowled over to where the leaves had fallen, his bare feet silent on the grass as he moved in his peculiar, off-balance way. "Do you still want to kill Him?"

"There are many things I was wrong about," Farfarello said, picking up a leaf and rubbing it between two fingers. His skin rasped softly against its velvet underside. "But the nature of God was not one of them. My reasons have changed, but the hatred remains. I will still destroy Him."

Ken nodded. He didn't know what else to say, or do. "You're so confusing," he muttered, rubbing his forehead idly. He could feel the beginning of a headache coming on.

"It's because you're stubborn," Farfarello replied, and to Ken's shock, he was smirking. "But you have had enough today, and you are not the philosophical type in any case. I will go," he said, and stepped back toward the trees.

"Wait." Ken blinked. "What?"

"You are going to be late," came the taunting sing-song, and with a glance at his watch, Ken realized the truth of it.

"SHIT." He whirled and took off running for the field. It wouldn't do to keep his kids and their parents waiting. He was so frantic at the realization of how much time had passed, that he didn't remember until after practice when he passed the empty bench on the way home that he hadn't asked Farfarello a single thing he'd planned on asking him. Nothing about Schreient, nothing about Schwarz, nothing about Eszet.

_Damn, _Ken thought, staring at the bench, tucked away in the shadow of the Buddha. _He got me again._

X-X-X-


	4. Chapter Four

Flesh and spirit. Spirit and flesh. Ken stared blankly as Birman stepped over to Aya and offered him a piece of paper.

"_Kundalini is supposed to be the purest form of life force energy buried deep within the spine. Yoga teaches that once you're attuned to it, you can tap into a great energy source."_

"Here. This is a list of Kundalini research labs. We'll go through them one by one. We're bound to find their lab."

"_There is a group that is trying to distill Kundalini energy scientifically for their own purposes."_

"And there's one more thing – Kritiker has received some information that four strange women have been seen at every crime scene. We're not sure who they are, but…."

Yohji's head raised. "It isn't…"

"We're still not sure," Birman repeated. "But based on the descriptions of the women, it's highly likely that they're Schreient."

Spirit and Flesh. Scientifically distill spiritual energy. Was it even possible?

A few hours later, he was staring at someone's attempt to answer that question as graphs and charts scrolled across the computer screen. He wasn't bad with a computer. He even knew a few hacker's tricks. But Omi was the real geek of the group.

"If I'd know I'd be doing this, I would have paid more attention in school," Yohji drawled in a complaining tone, cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Ken chuckled despite himself. Yohji was far more intelligent than he liked people to think – he had been a detective, after all. "Well, let's save a copy for Omi to look at," Yohji was saying, then trailed off. Ken looked up, blinking, just in time to see Yohji jerk backwards. He too flung himself back, shoulders slamming into the row of filing cabinets behind him. He twisted his head to the side just as three cross-shaped shuriken imbedded themselves in the metal next to his head. Four shadows burst from open doorways. Ken turned, and saw the way of escape clear, but Yohji was still there, making no move to run from the four lethally armed women.

"Yohji, look out!" Ken snarled as Neu leaped for him. He managed to dodge a kick that would have cracked his ribs. This wasn't right, he thought frantically as he fended her off, then turned to duck under an attack from Hell. He wasn't in uniform and he didn't have his bugnuks. He was effectively helpless, save for his fast reflexes and his hand-to-hand training, which was probably equal to Schreient's – useless when he was outnumbered. He took the quickest way out, elbows up to protect his head as he burst through the window. He rolled to his feet on the grass below, and paused to look back. What the hell? "YOHJI!" he yelled. "Come ON!" He was on his feet and running for Aya's car, where the backpack containing his equipment was. The car was unlocked… if only he could get there and back in time. Yohji wasn't thinking straight, he remembered as he saw the sleek lines of the white Porsche ahead of him. His hand closed on the door handle and he yanked, dragging on his mission clothing as fast as he could and sheathing his hands in the padded leather gloves. Yohji would let himself be injured because one of the women, Neu, looked like his beloved (and dead) partner, Asuka.

He whirled and kicked up tufts of grass as he sprinted back. Hopefully, Aya and Omi had heard the commotion and gone to Yohji's aid… no, there they were, headed his way.

"SCHREIENT!" he called, not changing course. "Yohji's in trouble!" Then he hit another pane of glass head-on, just as Schoen was closing in on Yohji, who held a struggling Neu captive. Knowing the blonde hated him for scarring her face, he tossed off the first quip that came to mind. He wasn't very creative, so the quip wasn't either, but it served its purpose. She left Yohji alone and attacked him instead.

"Schreient, stop!" Aya yelled, charging toward the broken window, sword out, but a pink Volkswagen beetle nearly ran him down, forcing him to roll sideways to avoid it. Ken planted a sneaker in Schoen's stomach and sent her flying backward, even as Neu elbowed Yohji twice in the stomach. Ken let her fall and went to Yohji, dragging him to the window just in time to see Omi's arrow plunge into the hood of the car on the driver's side, the car swerve to the side, and Neu's body fly over the hood, limbs askew like a broken marionette's. She crumpled to the ground. The car didn't stop, merely slowed to take on Schoen, then vanished in a squeal of tires.

Yohji stared at the limp body on the ground. "No…" he breathed. Ken felt his shoulders shake, and stepped back just in time, as Yohji screamed.

"ASUKAAA!"

X-X-X-

Ken lay awake, hands beneath his head. The moon shone in through the window, like it did every night, casting the colors of his room into various shades of gray. This time, it wasn't Kase keeping him awake, but something much more recent.

"_Hey… Ken… what do you think of her, really? I mean, I feel bad for Yohji, but I can't help thinking…."_

"_That it's a trap?" _

Omi'd caught on to it too, and that made Ken feel better, if only slightly. He didn't trust the situation one bit, but he saw the desperation in Yohji's eyes and knew – Yohji NEEDED this. He needed it or his soul would fracture even more.

"_You are all going insane."_

Ken moaned quietly and threw himself onto his stomach. The Irishman had begun to haunt him too, recently, his words and his strange mannerisms and the gleam of that single eye. One good thing Ken could say about that: Farfarello always chased Kase away, when the nightmares came, and in the few dreams he'd had in which the madman was doing him harm, it somehow had not hurt to have hands buried in his body to the elbows, thrusting aside his internal organs and clenching around his heart. It had felt oddly RIGHT, to have someone open him up, split him apart, see him for what he really was. And he had not been afraid.

"_Just leave her alone for a while! She doesn't remember anything!"_

Yohji's voice, raised in a plea.

"_I'll ask about your sister later!"_

"_That's okay, isn't it, Aya?"_

Ken himself, trying to make peace between the two men. Aya's temper was balanced on a knife's edge these days, and Yohji seemed more and more unhinged the more time he spent with the girl who had been Neu and might have once been Asuka. Ken wanted her to be Asuka almost as much as Yohji did, even if it meant losing Yohji… and he'd thought about that too, about what would happen if she really WAS Asuka. Asuka's death and Yohji's near-death had been the catalyst for the blonde's joining Weiss. Without that pain, he would no longer choose to be a white hunter.

Without my pain, Ken wondered idly, what would I be?

He let out a noise of disgust and threw the covers aside, pulling on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt over his boxers. Sliding his feet into his sneakers and lacing them up, he grabbed his soccer ball on the way out the door. He wasn't going to get any sleep like this. Better just drink some strong coffee in the morning.

Midori Gardens was deserted in the dead of night, the net between the goal-posts swaying gently in the breeze. Ken practiced juggling the ball for a little while, taking pleasure in the simple act of keeping the spinning black and white orb from touching the ground with his knees and feet. When he tired of that, he ran the drills he remembered from all those years ago in J-League. The sun was not out, and there was no crowd, no teammates to practice with, but the nostalgia was there none the less. Good memories sank into his bones slowly, warming him even though the night was a bit chilly and easing the throbbing ache in his soul. He always felt better like this, chasing the ball up the field, keeping it moving with the balls of his feet. He could focus on this, and everything else would just fall away.

When a glance at his watch showed the time to be three thirty in the morning, on a night when he had to work the morning shift the next day, he finally collected the ball and went home.

He was surprised to find Omi sitting up in the kitchen with the files spread out in front of him and a mug of hot tea in hand.

"Ken-kun!" the younger man exclaimed softly as the former goalie slipped into the kitchen, toeing off his dirty cleats and dropping the soccer ball to the floor. However, Omi's surprise quickly slipped into an understanding smile. "Couldn't sleep?"

"You either, ne Omi?" Ken summoned a tired smile. "We're going to be dead on our feet tomorrow."

Omi shrugged. "It won't be the first time I've opened the shop after an all-nighter," he said dismissively. "Would you like some tea?"

"I'd love some. With honey too," Ken said, favoring Omi with a more genuine smile as he took a seat at the table. Omi bustled around making tea for him and Ken relaxed. He had a feeling Omi was glad for the excuse to get up and move. "Hey…."

"Mm?" Omi didn't turn, but Ken knew he was paying attention anyway.

"Do you really think it's possible to harvest spiritual energy with science?" he wondered. "I mean, I thought they were separate, part of different… natures. Like, body and soul."

_Spirit and flesh, flesh and spirit._

Omi considered that as he stirred honey into Ken's tea and brought it to him. "Hmmm. I'm not sure what to think about that. But what concerns me is, what could Schreient need that kind of energy for, assuming it's possible for them to harvest it like they're trying to do?"

Ken nodded. "Maybe it has something to do with reviving Masafumi. They're obsessed with that."

"Maybe," Omi allowed, "but that doesn't seem to cover the entire picture. We're missing something."

"Wherever Schwarz comes into this," Ken suggested.

Omi blinked. "Schwarz? What do they…." He paused. "This organization, that's moving behind the scenes of all these strange crimes…."

"I think Schwarz has something to do with it. They're freaks, those four," Ken murmured, drinking his tea with a pleasured sigh. "They're unnatural. And all this – harvesting energy from peoples' spines, driving people insane with music – it stinks of their kind of work."

"But where would they fit into this?" Omi wondered. "There are only four, and I have the impression that the organization controlling all this is substantially larger than that."

"How should I know?" Ken wondered, throwing up his hands. "It's late, I'm tired, and I'm not the great thinker on the team even when I'm fresh."

Omi laughed. "I'm sorry. It's just so frustrating. But never mind that, Ken-kun. Go to bed."

"You should too," Ken scolded mildly. "We need you, Omi. We can't have you falling asleep on us, in the shop OR on a mission."

"Tomorrow's Wednesday," Omi reassured him. "We're never busy toward the middle of the week. We'll be all right, and Aya might not mind relieving us a little early."

"Yohji will," Ken pointed out as he gathered his ball and headed for the stairs.

Omi glanced toward the window, sky-blue eyes distant. "I'm not sure Yohji will be joining us at all tomorrow," he said quietly. "But you can try him and see what he says. Goodnight, Ken."

"Goodnight, Omi," he returned softly, and ascended the stairs. He threw his clothes over the desk and flopped back onto his bed.

This time, he slept quickly and had no dreams.

X-X-X-


	5. Chapter Five

Getting in between Aya and Yohji again made him feel vaguely sick when he remembered it. His jaw still ached from where Yohji had hit him. Omi had tried to take care of him, to see if it might be cracked, but Ken had waved him off. He sat at the register, half-asleep, as Omi (how DID he stay so cheerful all the time even when he was running on fumes?) greeted the few customers they had. The door opened behind him and Aya stepped through, already wearing his apron.

"Go, Ken," he said gruffly. "You're doing us no good down here. Sleep."

Ken twisted to blink blearily up at him. "Where's Yohji?"

"He didn't answer his door," Aya said flatly, and stepped further into the shop, prompting a few squeals. Ken stumbled to his feet and headed out through the back. He stopped by Yohji's door and knocked, calling for him, but there was no answer. He twisted the knob and found it unlocked.

"Yohji?" he called, stepping inside. But the room was empty.

Ken would have loved nothing more than to go up to his bed and collapse, but he hadn't called ahead to find a substitute for the day's practice, so he would have to show up. He climbed into his soccer things and headed out, taking his motorcycle this time, since he was too tired to walk.

Fortunately, it was a beautiful day, and the wind came in off the sea, easing the glare of the sun from a cloudless blue sky. He was a bit sluggish, but his kids weren't yet good enough that he needed to always be on his toes to keep up with them. None the less, practice wore him out, and when the last of them had been toted away by his parents an hour later, he wandered into the trees with a bottle of water and collapsed against a random trunk, rubbing the sweat from his forehead with a terrycloth towel.

It was so warm, and nice, that he let his eyes close. In minutes, he was asleep again.

When he woke, the sun was low in the sky. He climbed to his feet and checked his belongings. Miraculously, he had not been robbed, and he felt slightly better for having taken a nap. He wondered whether Yohji was home yet – had he had any luck with getting Asuka to remember? Noticing that the sun would set in an hour or so, he headed back to where he'd parked his motorcycle.

After taking only a few steps, he stopped.

Kundalini research. Schreient. Harvesting soul energy. He turned. It would take him extra time, and this late, it was very unlikely he'd even find him, but he had to try. His questions were more urgent now.

He broke into a jog.

The Buddha sat serene, tucked into a copse of trees and glowing red in the dying light. The bench was empty. "Farfarello?" Ken called tentatively, stepping into the silence space of the bend in the path, but there was no response. He turned around a few times, peering through the trees, but caught nothing. Disappointed, he trudged back to his motorcycle. He'd have to find his answers elsewhere, it seemed.

He hadn't been back at the shop for more than a few minutes before the phone rang, and Omi's startled voice declared that Neu had gotten some of her memory back, and had disclosed the location of Schreient's base to Yohji. Ken was overjoyed, and supportive. After all, it would be such a wonderful thing if it was true, if Yohji got Asuka back.

He needed her back, Ken realized slowly, as they made plans to meet up and attack the laboratory. Because Yohji was going insane, though none of them had really realized it yet. He was crumbling little by little under the stress, and the hopelessness, of what they did, and this incident had brought all that vulnerability and weakness boiling to the surface. He was a master of masks, Yohji Kudou was, but in the face of his once-true love, his masks were slipping.

Were they all like that on the inside, Ken wondered as he pulled on his bugnuks and tested the metal springs? Were they all crumbling bit by bit, waiting for a sufficiently strong emotional blow to knock the foundations out from under them? Was he that unstable too?

He'd already killed Kase, but in a way, he'd never be rid of him. He couldn't just forget, and not forgetting meant not healing.

He went to join the others downstairs.

X-X-X-

"_I'm sorry,"_ Omi had told him with that heartbreaking expression of regret on his face. _"Things are moving too quickly now. You can rejoin them after we've gotten this taken care of, Ken-kun, but we need you to concentrate on helping us find Schreient."_

He'd called in the substitute. He'd named the span of his absence as 'indefinite'. He had no excuse to be in the park right now, except the strong feeling in his gut that if he could just find Farfarello, the Irishman would have some of the answers he sought.

"_I've got a lead on who might be running things behind the scenes,"_ Omi had disclosed, fingers moving rapidly over the keyboard. _"But the security is unbelievable. It's going to take me a long time, and I just can't look into this and try and track down Schreient at once."_

"_So we find Schreient first." _This was Aya. _"They're a member short right now. They're weak."_

It had been a good thing Yohji wasn't around to hear Aya say that. He'd killed Neu. He'd done what he had to do, as far as Ken saw it. But the act had damaged something critical deep inside the man, and since he'd crushed her trachea with his wires, he'd spent a great deal of his time either in his room or driving around the city, in tears.

When Ken let himself think about that, it made him so livid he could scream.

The bench was empty when he reached it, and for a minute he stared at it, feeling forlorn. Then he sat down and sprawled over it, arms hooking over the back. It was cloudy, and the sunlight was weak through the trees. The dull gray of the sky, and the frenetic activity of the last week or so, made him sleepy. His eyes drooped.

He wasn't sure if he was awake or dreaming. He hoped he was dreaming. He had slid sideways on the bench, and his vision was pleasantly blurred. Strong fingers raked through his hair and kneaded his head, causing slow, gentle waves of bliss to wash down his spine. He felt so relaxed, he thought he might melt into the bench. With a mighty effort, he tilted his head back and found himself staring into a single golden eye, and the black patch of cloth covering the spot where the other had been.

"Is your eye really gone?" he slurred.

"I tore it out myself," came the soft, musical reply. Those fingers continued to work their way over Ken's scalp, making it impossible for him to move.

"There's something… I have to ask you," he managed, sighing as callused fingers rubbed at his temples.

"Then ask," Farfarello said quietly, his expression distant, his eye heavy-lidded.

"It's about the kundalini," Ken mumbled, eyes drifting shut despite himself. "To harvest spiritual energy like that, scientifically… can you really do that?"

"Science is the way of those who are not Awake," Farfarello told him, the lyrical rhythm of his voice lulling Ken even more. "We have better methods."

"So you ARE involved." Ken struggled to collect himself and sit up. "You know something about this, the weird killings with the spines cut out…."

Strong hands held him down, and slightly roughened thumbs dug into spots in his neck that caused a sudden release of warmth and lack of tension. He sank back obediently with a groan. "You need not be concerned about that," Farfarello told him. "If I were you, I would be worried about much more important things. It is all coming to a crucible. The best laid plans of men will be tried, and either succeed or fail. And the consequences…." His voice faded out for a moment. "… Will be dire."

"What are you talking about?" Ken's eyes closed again, and his jaw felt heavy.

"The end of the world," Farfarello murmured. "And the beginning of a new one. You will be there to see it, Hidaka Ken, Siberian kitten. But even the Oracle does not know if you will survive it."

"I don't know if I'd mind if the world ended," Ken told him blearily. "It all seems so pointless. Yohji's so sad… I don't understand why it has to be that way. What did he ever do to deserve that kind of pain? What did I do? What did Omi or Aya do?"

"Does it have to have a point?" Farfarello wondered.

"It should. Shouldn't it? If it doesn't, why are we here, anyway?" Ken felt his frustration rising, and he shifted in Farfarello's lap. "It's not fair. None of it's fair."

"Nothing is fair," Farfarello murmured. "There is no justice, in this world or the next, except the crude justice which man makes and wields in an effort to control his life and the lives of his neighbors. Injustice does not matter. What matters is whether you have the strength to overcome it."

"I don't know if I do," Ken admitted, feeling close to tears, anger and frustration and sadness and weariness mixing into a cocktail that threatened to boil over. "I don't know if any of us do. What happens if we don't? Do we break, or die? I don't want to. I don't want to see my friends broken."

"The shattering is not always the end," Farfarello told him soothingly, fingers stroking through his hair. "It is just a change. Like the Death card in the tarot deck, it does not always mean what you initially think it does."

"I wonder about that," Ken confessed, cracking his eyes open and seeing Farfarello still watching him. "You were a normal boy once, like I was, and you shattered, and you became this thing, and now you tell me Jei is dead. A ghost. What happens if it's too much for me? What happens if I shatter? Will Ken Hidaka be a ghost too? Will I just lose everything I was?" A pair of tears trickled from the corners of his eyes. He was too comfortable to move and wipe them away. "There's something dark down there. I don't want to set it free."

"If you do not," Farfarello told him quietly, "it will claw its way free and tear you apart in the process. It is as much a part of you as the light of God in your soul. You must know them both if you wish to be complete."

"You drowned all the light," Ken mumbled, watching those scarred lips move with a belated sort of fascination. "Is there anything in you except darkness?"

"I?" Farfarello's mouth quirked in amusement. "I was all darkness. With each passing day, I am more and more gray. I do not think I will ever become what you call 'light', but it is not as it was."

Ken found himself at a loss for words and made an effort to bestir himself. "Who's doing this?" he breathed. "Who's behind it all? It isn't you, or Schreient. You're all working for someone."

"In time, all things will be revealed to you," Farfarello told him, cool fingertips brushing across his forehead. "At the moment, I cannot say. The waiting will not be long, white kitten. You will know the truth soon."

"You can't, or you won't?" Ken demanded, half in despair.

"I won't," Farfarello corrected himself. "I am many things, but not a traitor."

"You can't like Crawford that much," Ken protested weakly. "The things he does to you…."

"It is not Crawford I fight for," Farfarello told him, pressing blissfully cool hands against Ken's neck and digging his fingertips in lightly. "I would not fight for any man. All of this is for something greater."

"Greater?" Ken whispered, blinking up at that delicately formed, scarred face.

"A dream," Farfarello told him. "That which is greater than all other motivations. I have one too, and the Oracle is merely one of those trying with me to see it through. We are not together because we like each other. We are together because we dream the same dream, and we are willing to fight against impossible odds to accomplish it."

Ken softened despite himself. "That's…."

"Hush." A slightly roughened thumb pressed against his lips. "You have not been sleeping well. Sleep now, until your comrades call you."

Ken opened his eyes. "How do you know I haven't been…." He began, but trailed off as Farfarello's knuckles dug into points on his neck that made his shoulders loosen even further. So strange, he could do this, or he could cause unbelievable pain, the same skill applied different ways. Where did he learn it?

"I see ghosts," Farfarello sang quietly to him. "I see the spirits of the dead. I know you are haunted, Hidaka Ken. The ghost disturbs your sleep, but I will not let him. You can rest here, now… one evil ghost will keep another one away." He giggled quietly, as if at some private joke.

It was ludicrous. It was dangerous. But if it was just a strange dream, what harm? Ken closed his eyes. Farfarello could slit his throat if this was real, tear his eyes out, rip him apart, but he couldn't summon the ability to care. He was so tired, and that attention felt so good, that he let himself drift off without further protest.

The sound of voices just barely managed to pierce the thick, blessed fog that descended over his mind.

"I don't know what you think you're doing. Didn't you tell me you don't play these kind of games?"

Low. Nasal. Schuldich.

"Do not presume to know my intentions." Musical and dark. Farfarello.

"You've got his head in your lap, and it's still attached to his body. That's a pretty clear indicator of your intentions. Didn't know you swung that way, Farfie."

"Sodomy hurts God." Farfarello's tone was content and even. He was not rising to Schuldich's bait. "But my mind is not a gutter like yours. I only want to show him the source of his pain before it overwhelms him."

"If it did, he'd be something like you. Doesn't the irony of that amuse you at all?"

"In a way."

A snort of disbelief. "Don't tell me you're trying to SAVE him. He's just a little lost kitten, scared of his own claws. He's Talentless. He's WORTHLESS."

"A man's worth is not based on the color of his skin or hair, the contents of his skull, or the arrangement of his genes," Farfarello said coolly. "You see human beings as playthings to be twisted to your whim. I see something more. This should not bother you. I am not interfering in your games."

"It bothers me because it means you care," Schuldich replied, sounding unaccustomedly solemn. "I worry about what HE'S doing to YOU…."

Ken went back to sleep.

X-X-X-


	6. Chapter Six

"Ken? Oi, Ken!"

Ken woke to someone shaking him sharply and groaned in protest, flinging an arm over his eyes. No, he was comfortable here, he didn't want to move.

The voice, which he distantly recognized as belonging to Yohji, persisted. "Ken, get up. We have to go… you can't sleep here. What's wrong with you?" The shaking stopped and Ken opened his eyes a crack.

Yohji stood over him, looking put-out. "You're going to be stiff as hell from sleeping on that bench," the older man drawled. "What the hell possessed you, hm? You've been so strange lately."

"Stiff," Ken repeated groggily, sitting up gingerly, but to his surprise and pleasure, he didn't hurt at all. He felt loose, relaxed, ready for anything. For the first time in months, he had slept, and he hadn't dreamed. Memory came back to him in a rush and he paused, eyes widening, the hand that was scratching his tousled hair freezing.

_One evil ghost will keep another one away._

Farfarello. Had he really… had Ken really…? He twisted frantically, but he was alone, save for Yohji, who distracted him from near-panic by taking his wrist and putting a hand on his forehead.

"Oi, Ken," he murmured, sounding concerned. "Are you all right, really? You don't seem sick, but Omi's been concerned about you. Even Aya said something when I came out here after you."

Ken looked into Yohji's cat-tilted green eyes, those gaijin eyes that made women swoon, and then looked away. "Yohji," he said quietly. "When you came here, did you see anything or hear anything unusual? Anyone hanging around?"

"Well, not really," Yohji said, settling back and looking puzzled. "I mean, I thought I would find you awake, because I heard…" he trailed off. "Well, it was probably a dog or something. Something snapping twigs. I thought it might be you so I chased it, and here you were. Almost a good thing, really, I'd never have thought to look here."

Ken considered that for a long moment, feeling Yohji's gaze narrow and become more intense.

"What's going on?" the blonde inquired quietly.

"Nothing," Ken said with a sigh. "Everything. Something big's coming. Don't you feel it? Everything's going to be decided soon, who's right and who's wrong and who lives and dies…."

"That's enough of that," Yohji told him firmly, hauling him to his feet. "We're going home. I hope you can make it on your own because I can't fit your bike in the Seven."

"I can make it," Ken told him, brushing himself off and sliding off the bench. "You go ahead, Yohji, I have some errands to run."

"It's not like that," Yohji said firmly. "Manx stopped by. We have another mission."

Ken took in a quick breath, and was surprised to find his hands shaking mildly. Nerves? "A-all right. I'll be right behind you. Let's go."

Yohji made an exasperated sound and headed back toward his car, and Ken followed at a more sedate pace, gazing in puzzlement at his hands. They seemed to vibrate with an odd sort of tingling buzz, the way they did when he… when he…..

_Ken Hidaka hates killing, but Siberian LOVES it._

Not nerves. Not nerves at all, but….

…Anticipation?

X-X-X-

The next few days passed in a haze of blood. Ken got very little sleep between conflicts, and by the time they'd snuck into the museum-turned-ritual-site, chasing the leaders of Eszet and two kidnapped girls, he was running on pure adrenaline. His gloves were still damp with the blood of those he'd killed, but the feeling didn't repel him. Here was everything. This was the time when he had to lay it all on the line. He had a faint suspicion that he would die here, a fitting end to a misspent life. The thought brought him strange comfort, especially as he felt himself becoming more and more lost in the haze of endless killing.

And here it was. The end.

Fire crackled in the upper reaches of the concert hall and the stench of scorched flesh was strong. The old woman turned her back on him to aid the old man and Ken saw his target. His lips pulled back in a rictus grin, heart pounding as he launched himself forward. This was IT. Now or NEVER. He couldn't lose!

He didn't. He slammed his fist, blades extending from the knuckles, into her back and rolled past, throwing himself on the ground even as Omi leaped over him and landed on top of him. There was a twang, a whoosh, a thud, and the woman collapsed.

Picking himself up from the floor, Ken realized that Aya, too, had dispatched one of the three leaders. But even as they closed in on him, the third escaped. There was a moment's pause to revive Sakura, who'd been switched for Aya-chan as the sacrificial lamb. Then, off on the chase again. One more to kill, and then they were done, and this nightmare would be over.

He was so focused on that, he couldn't hold back his surprise when they were suddenly, and rather unexpectedly, faced with Schwarz. And he with Farfarello.

If he'd expected quarter, he would have been disappointed. He recognized the maniac grin on that scarred face. A small part of him screamed in pain – he had spoken civilly with this man only days ago. But that part was silenced as he looked into that tiger-gold eye and felt the great cat within his own soul growl hungrily. This was his opportunity to let it all out, and he did, throwing himself at Farfarello with a scream of primal rage and satisfaction.

Farfarello was better than him. This was readily apparent. He opened shallow cuts in that ludicrous white suit, but then slender fingers with the power of steel cables wound around his wrist and yanked him in close. Another hand closed over his face and then his head met something hard and unyielding with a sickening crunch. Again, and again, and again… consciousness faded and he almost welcomed it. If this was his death, so be it. Only Omi, Omi couldn't let it go. Omi tackled Farfarello away from him and now the white-haired madman was kicking him to the ground and battering him.

"Omi," he breathed, feeling his eyes fill, thanks to this display of loyalty. He could die himself, he thought as he hauled himself back to his feet, but he couldn't let Omi die. Omi was too good. Omi had so much life ahead of him. He had something to fight for. Something to fight… for….

Blind rage overwhelmed him and he charged in. "THIS IS FOR KASE!" he screamed, and heard himself screaming. He felt his bugnuks sink into flesh and saw Farfarello hit the floor in a graceless heap, bleeding profusely from the throat. He'd caught him under that delicately pointed chin and torn through his mouth. He dropped to his knees next to Omi.

"Omi…."

Omi said something, but it was lost in the sudden rumble. The ground fractured and disintegrated beneath their feet. The ritual hall collapsed into the sea, taking all its secrets and killers, black and white, with it into the cleansing water.

"_It's the end of the world, and the beginning of a new one. You will be there to see it, Hidaka Ken, Siberian kitten. But even the Oracle does not know if you will survive it."_

Ken Hidaka fell into blackness, and welcomed it. They had done what they came to do. It was a job well-done.

_I'm coming, Kase, _he breathed into the chaos of noise. _I'm coming. And if you try to torment me in the afterlife, I'll kill you again for sure!_

And it was over.

X-X-X-


	7. Chapter Seven

He wasn't sure what drove him or propelled him. He wasn't sure why he was fighting. He only knew that the water in his lungs hurt, and the muscles in his thighs and shoulders burned, and wave after wave washed over his head but he refused to go under. He was swimming in grit, and there was sand under his feet, and he hauled himself up onto the beach to collapse on the sand with a coughing moan.

The roughness under his cheek brought him partially back to himself. He hacked and spit up seawater, contaminated with who-knew-what. His skull felt like a bruised melon. It was probably fractured.

"K-ken…."

He turned his head to see Omi crawling toward him. He made an effort and rolled over, eyes falling on the slim form of Weiss's leader.

"Omi," he whispered. Omi was alive. He hadn't died in the collapse. That was good. He remembered thinking, Omi had so much life ahead of him, he couldn't die now. It wasn't right.

There was movement over Omi's shoulder. Ken sat up to look at it, and his head swam immediately with throbbing pain, vision blurring. He blinked and refocused. It was Aya, hauling Yohji out of the water. They'd made it. They were alive. All of them.

That was wrong.

"We did it," Omi was saying, holding Ken's bicep. "We made it. We're out… are you all right, Ken-kun? Can you stand?"

_I'm not all right_, Ken wanted to say. _I've cheated death twice and this time I'm not sure I can go on living._ But he forced a smile and nodded instead. "Aa… Omi…."

Aya dropped to his knees and put Yohji down. The lithe, blonde assassin was obviously unconscious, and the redhead weary to the bone. But Abyssinian would not be cowed. He rose to his feet again, sopping trench coat weighing down the usually-proud set of his shoulders.

Omi twisted. "Aya… is he…?"

"He's alive," Aya said hoarsely, coughing as he used his katana as a walking stick to make his way up the beach.

"Wait," Ken tried to say, but failed, and tried again. This time, the word came out correctly. "WAIT. Where are you going?"

"Schwarz," Aya muttered. "If they survived… if they wash up… have to stop them while they're weak, or they'll … get … away…" He dropped before the barrier of the embankment, coughing hard.

"Leave them," Omi said gently, helping Ken to his feet, though Ken didn't particularly want to go. "They're not important right now. We're all injured. We have to get to a hospital with Yohji, and Ken's still bleeding."

Was he? He couldn't feel it. He couldn't feel anything except a terrible cold numbness.

"I'm all right," he said gruffly, shrugging off Omi's hands. "Aya, go north. I'll go south. We'll do a sweep for Schwarz, and if we don't see them, we'll just go to the hospital. Is that all right?"

Aya nodded, once, and Ken turned, stumbling off down the beach. He wanted nothing more than to find a bed and fall asleep for a few hundred years, but something was driving him, the need to know… something. The sand disappeared into trees, a promontory that cut across the beach. He climbed it laboriously and skidded down the other side, exhausted to the point of collapse. Sitting down next to a flowering bush, he put his head in his hands.

"Breathe, damn you, BREATHE."

Ken's head raised slowly. He didn't recognize the voice, though he felt he ought to. Crawling on hands and knees, he peered through the foliage.

"He's still got a pulse. HURRY, Crawford!" That voice, he recognized. Nagi.

"Get the water out of his lungs. Dammit, Schu, don't do this to me, I'm not through with you yet…."

Ken listened, but if Farfarello was there, he wasn't speaking.

"Crawford!"

There was a sickening hacking sound, followed by the sound of retching and the smack of flesh against wet flesh. More coughing. Then, a hoarse, no-longer-nasal voice.

"Good to know I'm… still useful… Brad…."

Crawford let out a sigh, and Ken pushed aside a fern-like plant. He could see them now, Crawford sprawled gracelessly in a sitting position next to Schuldich, who was picking himself up onto his hands and knees. Nagi was kneeling nearby. That was all- there were only the three of them. "Don't scare me like that," he snapped at Schuldich, but without any strength.

Schuldich picked his hair out of his face and offered the American a wry, sad sort of smile. "Sorry," he said quietly. "Something hit me in the back going down and I swallowed water. How far are we from the van?"

"Too far," Crawford said, hauling himself to his feet. "Weiss might have survived too. Can you find them?"

"Brad," Schuldich said gently, "with this headache, I couldn't find a corpse in a graveyard. They're tough, though, for Talentless. They did more than we expected… too bad they still don't know why."

"Pity them later," Crawford told him, leaning down to haul Schuldich to his feet. "Come on, walk. We have to move. We can regroup later. For now, we have to get out of here."

"What about Farfarello?" Nagi wondered, glancing back out toward the sea.

Schuldich sneered. "Hidaka got him good. He's probably dead. He's a psycho, Nagi. We don't need him… come on. We've got better things waiting for us, now that Eszet's gone. We're free."

"But shouldn't we wait?" the boy wondered quietly.

"Why do you care? He killed Tot, remember?" Schuldich said pointedly.

Crawford cut in. "Nagi. We couldn't keep him with us anyway, not anymore. He kills without discriminating or thinking things through. He'd lead the police, and Kritiker, right to us. Let's just go. Now."

Nagi hesitated, then nodded. The three of them climbed back up toward the road.

Ken watched them go, feeling sick to his stomach and wondering whether injury or emotion was the cause of his discomfort. Still, he couldn't stay and wait. He had to get back to Omi and Yohji. He heard the hum of engines. Kritiker would be there, as always, to nurse their wounds and make them whole again. In the coming days, he could sleep as much as he wanted.

"Did you find anything?" Aya demanded when Ken stumbled back to their stretch of beach, feet scuffing up sand and hands stinging when he dropped to his knees. He looked up at Aya blankly before dropping his chin.

"No. Nothing."

"Those engines," Omi murmured. "Is that…?"

"Birman," Aya ascertained, tilting his head back as a troop of Kritiker agents poured over the ridge. They were saved.

Ken watched as he and his comrades were bundled onto stretchers and hauled off into the backs of ambulances. They were driven, with sirens, to the magic bus hospital, where Aya-chan had lain in serene slumber for almost two years. There, under the reassurances of doctors that things would be just fine when he woke up, Ken let himself go to sleep again. He thought maybe he would dream of Kase, or of Farfarello.

Instead, he dreamed of hunting in the jungle. Sometimes, he was a man hunting a tiger, sometimes a tiger hunting a man. He did not wake up for a very long time.

X-X-X-

(( I've been quoting from the series somewhat, and now I'm going to quote from the dramatic albums. So I suppose now is a good time to say that I don't own ANYTHING Weiss related. All the credit for that goes to Project Weiss. What pieces I'm quoting have been translated, perhaps accurately, perhaps not, from Japanese or Chinese and are used without permission. I tried to keep the direct quoting to a minimum and do some paraphrasing. Also, I shuffled the time at which the dramatic album occurs. I know it's in the wrong place in the timeline. You'll just have to excuse it.))

"You need to get the kid some therapy, Brad."

Crawford twisted his head to eye Schuldig balefully. "I've already set something up."

Schuldig scoffed. "That NUN? Brad, please listen to me for ONCE. The woman is a manipulator, all right? Takes one to know one, and I know her for what she is. You can't manipulate Nagi into being happy. It's going to take actual work and effort on your part… on both our parts."

"Nagi needs to become more social. He'll never stay afloat in a regular school with regular classmates if he can't learn to talk to, and relate to, people."

"He killed his own mother! He has bigger problems than a lack of sociability! Everyone he's ever dared to love, who's loved him back, has died. If we're not careful, the kid's going to end up feeling like some kind of pariah. Do you know what he was thinking the other day?" On a roll, Schuldig didn't stop to let him ask. "He was thinking it's a good thing you obviously don't care as much about him as he cares about you, because if you did, you'd probably die too. So it's safer this way, loving you and not being loved in return, because it hurts less than losing you. WE ARE LOSING HIM, BRAD. Something has to be done."

Crawford sighed, sat back in his chair, and pushed his glasses up his nose. When he spoke, his tones were softer. "I'll see what I can do."

Schuldig paced back to the easy chair and flopped into it, barely consoled, but unable to protest further in the face of acquiescence.

Outside the window, a shadowy form slipped away from the square of light and warmth that pierced the darkness in which he shrouded himself. His fingers brushed the glass ever-so-slightly. If he thought he deserved it, he would have broken the glass and pleaded for entrance, but he had no place in their lives. They'd shown him that when they'd abandoned him.

He couldn't go back to Schwarz. He knew that. They had something resembling a family unit now, and would not welcome him. He was fairly certain they did not know he was alive, which meant that, despite the fact that he would have to keep his head down and remain incognito, he was… free.

No more owner. No more leash. No more orders or missions. He could do as he liked.

For a split second, he felt as he thought Adam and Eve must have, teetering on the edge of infinite possibility and unable to take that final, deadly step. But he drew away from the false promise of companionship the window represented and lost himself in the shadows of Tokyo. He would not allow his emotions to run away with him, not this time. He would not ruin this second chance to take the War to God's doorstep.

He was a human being, and he had needs. They included food, shelter, and security. He would find these things first and worry about the rest later. But before anything at all . . . .

Farfarello was an incredibly patient man when he wanted to be. Years of being left in small rooms wrapped in straightjackets had taught him that. So he did not mind waiting for nine hours, as the night slipped away and turned slowly into day, lurking where no one could spot him but he had a good view of the new safe house Crawford had appropriated. At eight, the door opened, and Crawford stepped out with Nagi. They got into a car. That would make it difficult for Farfarello to tail them, but he didn't have to. He'd seen the uniform Nagi was wearing. Every school had a different uniform, so tracking him by that would be relatively easy.

Three hours later, he was scaling the wall of the school building. It would have been easier if Nagi had chosen to eat outside, but he was alone in the classroom, so this would be relatively easy. He slipped in through the high window in utter silence. Nagi, eating hunched-over with his sandwich held in both hands, heard nothing.

Farfarello took hold of Nagi's dominant wrist and clapped the other hand over his mouth. Predictably, the boy struggled, but Farfarello crooned gently in his ear. That didn't calm Nagi down – on the contrary, it made him more afraid. But now that he knew who had him, he also knew it was better for him to be perfectly, completely still.

"Easy," he whispered soothingly, and released the boy. Nagi sat where he was, trembling slightly and panting.

"Farfarello… you're alive."

"Do not state the obvious. It tries my patience."

Nagi wilted. "Sorry."

"You abandoned me when the temple fell," Farfarello pointed out, circling Nagi and sitting Indian-style on the floor in front of him. "All of you left me. But you do not have to worry. I am not angry about that, or anything else. I am here to ask for a favor from you."

Nagi blinked. "What kind of favor?"

"A simple one." Farfarello withdrew a slender, leaf-shaped throwing blade from somewhere in his clothing and nibbled on it thoughtfully. "I am going to drain my accounts and move them elsewhere. I know you have been putting my salary in an account for me. When I do this, I want you to say nothing to Crawford or Schuldig. I do not wish for them to know that I survived. As they are free of Eszet, now I am free of Schwarz, and I intend to remain free. Do you understand?"

Nagi's eyes narrowed and he dipped his head. "Hai. I won't say anything. I won't think about it either. If they ever ask where the money went, I'll tell them I donated it to the Magic Bus Hospital. They'll think that's funny."

Farfarello nodded and stood. "Thank you," he said with his traditional, formal politeness. He turned and left through the same window he'd entered.

Nagi didn't move for ten minutes after he was gone. Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief.

X-X-X-

It was several months before Ken was able to leave the hospital. None of the others had suffered injuries as severe as his (head trauma was a real bitch, the young doctor had jokingly told him), so one by one, they had come by to wish him well and returned to… whatever life they were building. It wasn't at the Koneko, Ken knew, because Aya-chan was there now. Yohji told Ken when he came to visit. Aya-chan and Sakura both worked at the flower shop and Weiss had been put up temporarily by Kritiker in a safe house. Yohji spoke of traveling and selling flowers out of a van. There was a slightly wistful tone to his voice, and it made Ken wistful in turn, but in the meantime, before they could do that, they would have missions. As soon as Ken was better, Yohji insisted, he could come along. They missed him. They needed him.

When he was alone, as the nights stretched out and his skull healed, leaving him once again insomniac, he flexed his hands and stared at them in the dim light. He couldn't see any blood on them, but he knew it was there, driving him insane with the phantom itch. So much blood, so much death and pain that he'd caused, and nothing could ever wipe it away. Not selling flowers out of a van, not anything.

Several times, he thought of dying and wondered if he had the courage to attempt it, but he always decided against it. As long as he was alive, he could still do some good. He himself was irredeemable, but couldn't even a tainted thing be of some use? He scratched at his hands until they were raw, but the feeling never went away.

One night, he woke from a nightmare to find himself sucking on his fingers. He tasted copper. His teeth had torn open a hang-nail. Nothing serious, but the taste of the blood was sharp and musky, and he rolled it around on his tongue as he tried to get back to sleep and failed.

_I'm losing my mind. I'm going insane. Is there nothing bright anymore?_

"Concentrate on healing," the doctors told him. "You'll be back on your feet soon."

Soon turned out to be an eternity.

When he went home, he went home to a strange place. His things were there, in boxes, but they had no memory to him anymore. He didn't bother unpacking them. He sat in a plain room, surrounded by the boxes that contained his life. He wanted to smash them, burn them, throw them out the window. Instead, he unpacked only the things he absolutely needed and left the rest to sit against the walls in neglected silence. There was a new Koneko Kritiker had set up, far from the old one, and they were still selling flowers, but the absence of their old customers made the job not nearly as diverting as it had once been.

He went to the park when he was well enough, but he did not resume his coaching. He watched from the trees, where he wouldn't be seen, as the kids he'd thought of as HIS for so long laughed and ran their drills.

He sat for hours on the bench behind the Buddha, but always alone.

It was on one of those wanderings that he met Natsuki, and everything fell apart.

X-X-X-

"Ken? Isn't it Ken?"

The excited tones in her voice only made his stomach fall even more.

"Are you still in J-League? I saw it on TV once before going to America to study!"

_Way to pick at old wounds, Natsuki-chan_, he thought wearily, then scolded himself. He had grown up with this girl. They'd been children in the mission together, when Ken's father had sent him there for therapy after his mother had died. After all the trouble they'd gone through together, he shouldn't think such things about her.

"I had to quit," he told her. "I got injured."

"Oh, really? I'm so sorry… I hadn't heard anything since coming back from the US, so I didn't know." She smiled broadly at him across the table of the small coffee shop they'd wandered to. "Ano… Ken… do you still remember things from that time?"

He blinked, trying to summon some sort of interest in the conversation. "Um?"

She giggled. "At first, I thought you were such a scary kid, because you sat at the door with that frown on your face."

Ken looked away. "After mom died…." Old sadness welled up and he swallowed. "I didn't want to talk to anyone. Dad sent me to the church for therapy, because the Sister would give therapy to children."

She nodded, saddening also. "We were both so young then, we never talked about these things. As for me, my parents couldn't stand each other. Every time they fought, it was over me, so I kept thinking that it would have been better if I was never born. I cried so much, all the time. It's because of Sister that I found my smile again. Of course, you helped too."

Ken smiled fleetingly. "We were enough trouble for Sister. We hid all the prayer candles, dumped out buckets of roaches during mass…."

"And told people the roaches were there because the church was falling apart!" She laughed. "Always thinking up tricks and giving Sister trouble."

"I wonder how she's doing," Ken murmured distantly.

"Oh, she's very well," Natsuki assured him.

Ken blinked. "You've met recently?"

Natsuki fidgeted uncomfortably. "Well, I… the truth is, I went back to staying at the church. I couldn't take it in America. I was jumpy and… things. Sister told me when I left that I couldn't come back, but she let me – she welcomed me back with the same smile. She's been so wonderful to me."

Ken listened quietly as she told him about it, then blinked when she jumped up and grabbed his wrist.

"Let's go see her right now!"

He balked. "Uh… no. I shouldn't…"

But he couldn't win the argument, and shortly thereafter he found himself on the steps of the church where he'd spent most of his childhood. The crooked wind vane he'd made as a young boy was still there.

_If I told Sister what Farfarello told me, about sin and God… what would she say, I wonder?_

The doors flew open and the Sister came out. Natsuki went to her. He was welcomed back with laughter and threats of a lecture, memories and teasing. For a moment, his heart almost eased.

Then he heard a cat's cry, turned, and saw Naoe Nagi.

For a moment they just stared at each other. Then Nagi, as if he didn't know Ken at all, merely nodded and said, "Hello."

Ken nodded blankly.

"He's living here at the moment," Natsuki told him. "His name is Nagi."

Ken smiled slightly. "Cute cat," he said, nodding at the feline in Nagi's arms.

Nagi's lips quirked up just slightly. Behind those cerulean eyes lurked a great deal of darkness and pain, and Ken felt bad for him. It couldn't have been easy, growing up as what he was, with Schwarz defining things for him.

"Sister, I'll go chat with Nagi. You and Ken catch up!" Natsuki announced, tugging Nagi away. Ken blinked.

"But…"

"Go! Go chat!"

He stood for a moment, staring at Sister, then managed a half-smile. She smiled widely at him.

"Welcome back," she said. "Come inside. We'll have tea and you can tell me everything."

X-X-X-


	8. Chapter Eight

Because of how long he ended up staying at the church, talking to the Sister, he was late getting back to the shop. Yohji was upset and tried to saddle him with extra work, but Omi interrupted the squabble. There was a tape, he explained, and another mission.

They sat down to watch.

"Weiss," Persia's outline said, "there's a mission for you. The target is this woman: Yokohama Penichua Church's nun, Amamiya Kaoruko."

It was a picture of Sister.

_Oh, no,_ Ken thought as his stomach curdled in shock. _Oh, no, no, NO, not again, not this all over again!_

"Amamiya provides psychotherapy to young people with serious family problems. Take a look at this news clip." The tape segued into the clip, which showed a female reporter.

"Last night, a well-known rock star, Jack K, real name Takoto Muashi, has been murdered by a fan, who then committed suicide. According to witnesses, there had been sounds of a fight coming from the waiting room before the incident. The prosecution is

deciding whether to investigate further..."

"That girl had been receiving regular therapy from Amamiya since several years ago. She was subconsciously programmed to be controlled by Amamiya, becoming her killing machine, and leading to this incident." Persia's voice darkened. "The method of operation is to first get close to the target, then commit the crime after becoming friends, and then commit suicide. For this incident, the news has indicated it's an isolated hate crime, but we know it is an organized murder. From the start of Kritiker's investigation up until now, over a dozen people have been murdered this way. These are the photographs. Each one of them is an influential figure."

Pictures flashed across the screen. Ken didn't see them. Bile rose in his throat and he felt very much like throwing up.

"This type of murder is making use of people's weakness of heart, so there can be no evidence brought to light. Therefore, it is your job. Hunters of the darkness, deny these dark beasts their tomorrows!"

"So, who's in?" Manx inquired, holding the briefing folder in one manicured hand.

"I'm in," Omi said.

"Me too," Yohji answered lazily.

Aya merely nodded.

"And Ken too?" Manx fairly purred, but she stopped when she saw how stiffly Ken was sitting, with his hands clenched in his lap.

"No. I'm out of this one." He ground the words out from a clenched jaw. "I quit."

"Ken!" Omi's voice was shocked.

"I QUIT," he snarled, and with that, he left the room.

He left uncomfortable silence behind him.

X-X-X-

It was funny sometimes, how life played out like a soap opera. Ken sometimes felt like he was following the script of someone who hated him. Against his better judgment, he'd gone to the church to try and warn Sister. Instead, he'd found Natsuki and Nagi. Nagi had told him firmly not to do anything that would betray Sister, and Ken had given his word… and broken it.

Her blood stained his hands too, now. She'd tried to put him under her control and turn him against his teammates.

Why was everyone he loved a traitor?

He'd gone to her and he'd sunk his claws into her body. He'd stood there while Nagi's grief brought the aging church down on their heads. His teammates ran, but he didn't, and when the destruction was over, he was still standing there unharmed. The universe made a bubble for him. Why? He wanted to scream and rage at the sky, but instead, he merely stood. Why? What was the point?

He left only when a sleek black car pulled up and Crawford got out. Ken had no wish to face any more of Schwarz today. He turned and he ran, he ran and he ran and he ran through the streets as the rain came down and the sky turned black and more and more of his heart and mind fractured with each passing minute. Lightning cracked and thunder rolled and his feet pounded the pavement, scattering water droplets as he charged through puddles. He didn't track his movements, just picked a direction and ran. He sobbed as he ran.

Finally, he could run no more. He collapsed against an alcove that contained a door, wrapping his arms around himself and letting great sobs wrack his body as he cried into his knees. He was still bloody, and he was out where anyone could stumble across him, but he didn't care. He couldn't care about anything, not anymore.

He didn't care when he felt steel-strong hands lift him from his crouch and propel him down a street. He didn't care when he was bundled into a building and herded up three flights of stairs to an apartment. He didn't care when his jacket was yanked from his body and he was tossed unceremoniously onto a rather comfortable, navy-blue corduroy couch.

He came back to himself rather abruptly when Farfarello crouched in front of him and mutely offered him a cup of tea.

For a long moment, they stared at each other – Farfarello with calm patience, Ken with suspended grief. Then, finally, he moved cracked lips and whispered.

"I understand now."

"What do you understand?" Farfarello inquired.

"Everything." He choked. "Everything. Why… Why YOU. I know now. How it felt, how you must have felt, why you do it… she was… she was…."

"She was a liar, as they are all liars," Farfarello said, the musical tones of his voice soothing. He folded Ken's hands around the cup. "Drink. You will feel better."

"What is this place?" Ken wondered, staring at Farfarello in mild disbelief. He'd been so sure the Irishman was dead….

"It is an apartment. It belongs to me."

"You have an apartment?" The strange normalcy of that made Ken goggle.

"Even I must live somewhere," Farfarello said. He moved off, and Ken drank his tea. It was Orange Pekoe, a pleasant surprise, and he took the opportunity to look around.

The place was very plain, but he could tell it was Farfarello's. The furniture was not black and red, but it was in dark, stain-obscuring colors, and it was comfortable and functional before being aesthetic. They were slightly mismatched items, a dark green easy chair shoved into a corner where three overflowing bookshelves surrounded it, balancing papers and paperbacks precariously. A narrow, scuffed table held a fairly new sound system, a set of nunchucks, a number of candles, and a cat-shaped chia pet, which Ken stared at dumbly for several minutes before convincing himself that it was really there.

The other wall had a stand-up corkboard several inches thick onto which were pinned human-shaped black targets. The targets were barely intact anymore, and several throwing knives were still imbedded in the cork nearly to the hilt, in the targets' vital spots. A battered punching bag hung in one corner near a stand of free weights. The door to the bedroom was closed, and in the kitchenette, Ken could see Farfarello moving around.

Moving around. In a kitchen. Ken gave his head a hard shake when it was suddenly filled with an image of the madman in an apron and chef's hat, giggling maniacally while chopping ginger.

Farfarello slipped from the kitchen into the bedroom soundlessly, moving like a panther on his own turf, and Ken stopped paying attention. The tea was sweet and good and warmed his bones. He hadn't really realized he was cold.

Farfarello reappeared and dumped a pile of clothes in his lap. "Change. You are soaking my couch." He then retreated back into the kitchen.

Ken laughed despite himself, and set the teacup aside. He'd been brought a rather nondescript set of sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt, in gray and navy blue, and a pair of gray slipper socks, along with a towel. He glanced at the kitchen, but Farfarello was out of sight. Knowing he'd been intentionally given privacy, he stripped and dried off quickly, then pulled on the borrowed clothing. He was toweling his hair dry when the Irishman returned and gathered Ken's clothes, beckoning him. He followed into the bedroom, then to the adjoining bathroom, to see his clothing tossed over the shower rod to dry. "You may use the shower," Farfarello told him, "or anything else here."

Ken nodded, swallowing against the lump in his throat. "Thank you. Can I ask you a question?"

Farfarello smirked slightly, a lopsided expression that only touched half of his mouth. "It is not the questions you should be afraid of – it is the answers."

He chuckled. "All right. Question, then: why are you being so kind to me?"

"I have already answered that," Farfarello told him.

"I don't remember. Humor me."

"Because we are alike," Farfarello told him, pausing next to the large, low, unmade bed with sheets of white and slate-blue. The closer doors bore full-length mirrors, and he brushed his fingertips down the face of one. "Because if you looked into a twisted mirror that showed your soul, you would see something like me."

"I used to think that wasn't true," Ken said quietly, looking in the mirror along with him. "But lately, so many things have happened. Did you know, I practically grew up in a church? And that nun, the Sister, she did so much for me during my childhood, but it was all a lie. When I killed her, she clung to me, and I couldn't help thinking of how Ruth still tried to hold you even when you'd already murdered her. And I knew then how you must have felt that first time, when you just lost it. I knew because I wanted to. I wanted to destroy everything. Kill the world."

"It hurts," Farfarello said simply, softly. "Even I can feel that kind of pain."

Ken turned abruptly, to face him. "Were you always like that?" he demanded. "Or did it happen… after?"

"It happened in adolescence," Farfarello told him. "It went away slowly in the asylum in Ireland. Over the course of four months I lost the ability to comprehend the pain. I fought and tried to bring it back, but it was gone forever. When I escaped that place and was later recaptured, I was shot three times and felt nothing. I tore out my eye not long after that."

"You have some sort of… increased healing, don't you?" He reached out and took Farfarello's arm, shoving the sleeve of his t-shirt up to reveal an unmarked stretch of skin that had once been burned with acid. "So why do some scars stay and some don't?"

"All the scars I still have, I received before my healing abilities were fully developed." Farfarello did not object to being manhandled. Ken had a brief flash of the bench in the park, hands moving through his hair and turning his muscles to jelly. Farfarello was a tactile person. _ But_, he thought, _that made sense_. _As much time as he's spent in isolation, restrained, touching and being touched must be reassuring. _Without really thinking what he was doing, he ran his hand up that pale, scarred bicep. Farfarello moved only slightly, turning and cupping Ken's other elbow, staying like that. Ken couldn't tear his eyes away from that pale skin, stretched over hard muscle. Farf was strong, he'd noticed that before. He was solid, and real, and THERE.

All of a sudden, Ken felt dizzy. He swayed on his feet, but in taking his elbow, Farfarello had already caught him. He couldn't fall. Securely, he was coaxed backwards, collapsing on springy softness.

"Sleep here," came the lullaby whisper. "And in my place, do not be troubled by dreams."

Obediently, he slept.

X-X-X-

"He just conked out?"

"Immediately. He is not injured."

"Nah, 'course not. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I guess we're lucky he just passed out. If you and he are really so similar, we could have had a massacre on our hands."

"He is not far from that point."

"No, I wouldn't guess. So, what're you going to do with him? Slice him up and test out your new blender?"

A soft, dangerous chuckle. "No. He is damaged, and hurting. The truth is a knife that twists ever deeper. I will keep him."

"For how long?"

"Now, until he decides to leave. In the future, as long as I may. It will not stop until he has lost everything. It will be little comfort that his companions are going insane along with him, all save Abyssinian."

"What makes him special?"

"He has no purpose, no goal, and no dream," Farfarello said quietly. "He is perfect void."

"Ah. Buddha's prodigy, then. I don't know. I tend to think that when you live like that, you lose something essential about being HUMAN, and about what it means to live here in the mud like everybody else. But I ain't Buddhist and Tao ain't anywhere near me. Hey, you cleared for Tuesday?"

"I know the time and place."

"See you then, I have to run. Take good care of him, he's cute, and no religious ranting until he can string a complete sentence together. You'll just make it worse."

"It will worsen anyway, before it heals."

"If it heals. Goodnight."

"Good evening."

X-X-X-


	9. Chapter Nine

Ken woke up feeling oddly like a used dishrag – every muscle in his body was in such a state of total relaxation, he wasn't sure if he could move. He worked on his eyes first, and after a bit of effort, they cracked open.

The room he was in was dim, sunlight filtering in around the edges of blinds covered by curtains. The walls were painted a soft, slate gray, the ceiling white and textured. Summoning the will to roll over, he found that the sheets were white and the bed large and low to the floor. A set of mirrored closet doors reflected his unshaven, unkempt image back to him with merciless honesty, and he groaned, pulling the covers over his head.

Covers that weren't his.

He sat up abruptly, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead as he tried to remember what, exactly had happened. It came back to him swiftly, and he discovered he would have preferred to remain amnesiac. His stomach turned over and he choked back a sob.

"Sister," he breathed, "why did you… oh God…."

His breath hitched, but the tears refused to come. He was somewhat grateful for that. He rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes to dash away any accidental moisture and took a deep breath. He perked up. Did he smell breakfast? He ran his fingers through his hair until it was more horizontal than vertical, decided it was the best he could manage, and stumbled out of the room.

Outside the door, it was painfully bright, and he squinted, stumbling to his right and clasping a hand around the doorframe of the kitchen. Farfarello, in the gray sweats and white t-shirt Ken had first seen him at the park in, swayed idly in front of the stove with a spatula in one hand, stabbing rather viciously at a deep skillet which was giving off a positively entrancing aroma. Ken took a deep breath and his stomach let out a loud growl, which caused Farfarello to twist his head around and eye him with amusement.

Ken offered him a sheepish smile. "Um… morning."

"More like afternoon," the Irishman told him easily. "You slept well?"

"Like a rock," Ken confessed, leaning against the doorframe. "Normally I can't stand to sleep in a bed that isn't mine… I must have really been out of it."

"You were grieving," Farfarello said with a shrug, his voice dry. "Exhaustion is a common side effect of trauma."

"I guess you're the expert," Ken offered with a wry grin. "I didn't know you could cook."

"Five months ago, I could not," Farfarello said easily. "But I can read, and I can follow instructions, so I can now cook."

Ken laughed. "I can make the basics, but nothing special. That smells great… miso and fried rice?" Steamed rice was the staple to eat with miso.

"I prefer it," Farfarello told him simply. "There is egg in it. If you would like some, sit down."

"Yes ma'am," Ken teased, taking a chair and plopping himself down in it. Farfarello shot him a look, but softened when Ken offered him a disarming grin, and took a plate down from a nearby cabinet. Ken glanced around. "It's a lot more orderly than I expected," he said quietly. "I don't know if I ever tried to think what your house would look like if you had one, but I guess I imagined it'd be kind of like you – a little random, always unexpected, interesting but sort of hazardous."

"It is more comfortable if it is somewhat neat," Farfarello told him simply, then more quietly, "I am less sane than you believe. There are times when I cannot… think entirely straight. At those times, it helps me to have everything in an established place."

Ken nodded slowly. "I guess." He looked up as Farfarello set a plate and bowl in front of him, and a set of chopsticks, and inhaled deeply. "My god, you…."

It was all he got out before he was pinned to the wall, chair tilted back at an angle, throat burning as Farfarello's hand crushed it. Instinctively, he dug his thumbs into pressure points, but to no effect.

"Do not swear by His name," Farfarello snarled at him. "Blasphemy or no blasphemy, He deserves no such honor. To swear by His name is to swear by all the falsehood, ignorance, and injustice that has every existed and ever will exist and I will not tolerate it."

"Cnt…swwwrr….cttg….troat…"

Farfarello paused, then released him.

Ken gasped, raising a hand to his neck. "I can't answer when your hand is cutting into my throat," he repeated, glaring at Farfarello. "If you've got a problem with something I say, just TELL me, dammit, don't pull a… a… a MCGUYVER on me."

Farfarello smirked slightly.

Ken sighed. "Shee. Psycho," he accused without any real venom, pushing away from the wall and picking up his chopsticks. Farfarello patted his head, then returned to the stove, causing Ken to grumble mutinously… at least until he put the first bit of food into his mouth. Then there was no talking, merely the noises of voracious hunger being exercised upon his breakfast. He wolfed down the entire contents of his plate and bowl, and barely paused to thank Farfarello when they were immediately replenished. After seconds, he went back for thirds, and only after he'd finished the last of that did he stop and push away from the table. Across from him, Farfarello was slowly and methodically eating his own breakfast.

"Thanks," he said sincerely.

"You are welcome," was the typically formal answer.

Ken reached for the glass of water he'd been using to wash down as much food as would fit in his mouth at one time, and finished it off. "It was really good," he said earnestly.

Farfarello nodded. "I am aware that you appreciated it," he told Ken calmly. "When I said you were welcome, it was meant."

"Oh." Ken blinked and glanced aside. "Sorry. I guess I thought it would be… I don't know, kind of an imposition… well, my teammates already KNOW how I eat, so they know what they're getting into when they invite me to breakfast."

Farfarello smirked, but said nothing, and Ken fidgeted, beginning to be unnerved by the silence.

"And thanks for putting me up last night. I… was in bad shape, I really needed looking-after, but I guess I figured one of my teammates would be doing it. You didn't need to give me your bed, I could have slept on the couch."

"Next time, you will sleep on the couch," Farfarello assured him, gesturing at Ken with his chopsticks. "But this one time, I did not mind."

Ken nodded and flushed slightly, not entirely sure why he was turning red, only that he was embarrassed for some nebulous reason. "Next time?"

Farfarello eyed him, setting his chopsticks down and neatly stacking his empty bowl on his cleaned plate. "You tried to seek me out," he said musically, "when I was in hiding. You returned to the park several times. Why?"

"You knew I was there?" Ken demanded. "Then why…?" He trailed off, realizing what he'd been about to say, and how it sounded.

"Why didn't I come to you?" Farfarello finished, standing and taking both their dishes to the sink. "Because I was not ready to let anyone know that I was alive. I had not yet established my freedom strongly enough that it would be difficult for someone else to take it from me, and I was not certain how closely Schwarz was watching you. Schuldig is a telepath, and you have no shields."

"Oh," Ken said sheepishly, then slowly, "Do you think they would? Take it from you, I mean."

"I do not care to find out," Farfarello told him, turning on the water.

Ken settled back, troubled, to consider that. He remembered Schwarz actions on the beach and frowned. They considered Farfarello a loose cannon and a liability. Truthfully, Ken had thought of him the same way up until recently. Abruptly, he realized he hadn't read about any mutilations in the newspaper anyway. "Have you been killing?" he wondered seriously.

Farfarello glanced at him over his shoulder, then nodded. "Here and there. I cannot indulge the urge much, because it would be noticeable, but I do when I can, and I am careful."

Ken sighed. "The urge," he repeated dully, rubbing his thumbs against his palms and feeling them tingle. "Do your hands shake?"

"Among other symptoms," Farfarello told him.

Ken nodded slowly, heart sinking, then was abruptly distracted. "Oh! Shit, I'm sorry, I should be helping," he said apologetically, extricating himself from his seat and joining Farfarello at the sink. The Irishman did not protest, merely handed him a dish and a towel. Ken obligingly began drying, which was the task he liked best in any case.

"You are suffering the symptoms," Farfarello ascertained, putting a damper on Ken's rise in mood before it had time to really go anywhere.

Ken sighed. "I… don't know. My hands have been shaking. It used to be from nerves. Before missions, I mean, but lately it's been something other than nerves. Sometimes I'll get really angry, or frustrated and start thinking about doing things. Terrible things. And my hands will shake, and something in me… something... it's almost like a stirring, or a growling, just this shifting and I don't know, I can feel that it's dangerous. It's frightening. Nothing personal, but I don't want to become you. I don't want to be like the dark beasts we hunt. I don't want to be a murderer."

"You are already a murderer," Farfarello told him easily, handing him another dish. "The only difference between what you do and what you wish to do is the thin line of moral relativity."

"Gee, thanks," Ken muttered. "You know how to make a guy feel better."

"I was not trying to make you feel better," Farfarello said, "I was telling you the truth. You will find peace when you come to terms with what you are."

"Are you at peace?" Ken challenged.

"Moreso now than before," Farf shot back easily. "If you wish to make a change, you must first look objectively at your problem, but you cannot do that when you are deceiving yourself."

Ken sighed. "I know, I know. But I have to believe there's a difference, you know? You have to understand. If there isn't a different, then all I am is…."

"A murderer," Farfarello supplied helpfully. "And thus, the conversation comes full circle."

Ken glared at him and swatted him half-heartedly with the towel. Farfarello disregarded it. "Yes, a murderer. But I don't want to me a murderer. To me, that's a bad thing to be."

"All God's creatures have preyed upon each other since The Fall," Farfarello told him. "The oldest rule is that the strong survive. You are doing nothing that has not been done since the beginning of time. You will burn in hell for your transgressions and so will I, but I do not see the need, as you do, to make my time on earth hellish as well."

Ken blinked, having a sudden flashback to the first dream he'd had of Farfarello.

_Are you going to make a hell of earth as well?_

"But I should, shouldn't I?" he said dully, rubbing the plate with the towel and watching his reflection in the ceramic blankly. "I should be punished for taking so many lives."

"You are the only one who is punishing you," Farf told him, taking the dish from his hands and putting it away to hand him another one. "You do not need to feel guilty. You do not need to feel anything. You are the one who decides what to feel and you are sentencing yourself to misery. No one else is doing it for you. If you chose to stop being miserable, you could do that."

"Could I?" he wondered. "Ever since I was kicked out of J-league, I haven't known anything else. Spots, moments, but nothing that ever lasted. I'd always come home to another mission. But lately, the only time when I've really felt alive has been when I was taking someone else's life. And that's SO wrong. I can't even describe how wrong it is."

"It is understandable," Farfarello assured him. "Your life has become a two-dimensional simulacrum, a faded representation of a life. When you kill, you are reminded that this man is dead, but you are not. You are still alive. Also, when you kill, you have a power that you lack in the rest of your affairs. It is addictive. I know this well."

"Can I stop it?" Ken wondered, looking up and meeting the madman's gaze. "Or reverse it? Anything to stop feeling this way."

"Only if you leave this life behind entirely and never kill again," Farfarello told him. "And you cannot do that. Wherever you go, this life will find you. Once a killer, always a killer… you can never go back, Siberian, Ken Hidaka."

"If I can never be happy again," Ken said mutinously, "why should I care if my life on earth is hell?"

"I never said you could not be happy," Farfarello returned. "I said you could not be NORMAL."

"But that's what I WANT!" Ken shouted, considerately setting the dish down on the counter before he balled up the towel and hurled it across the kitchen. "I want to be normal! I want to go back to how things were! I worked SO hard for that position, I earned it, I was so happy there playing for Japan, and then my BEST FUCKING FRIEND threw me to the wolves. I don't understand why it had to happen. It wasn't right. It wasn't FAIR!" He slammed a fist into the cabinet door. Fortunately, it resisted him admirably.

Slender fingers curled around his wrist and shoulder and he felt the supporting firmness of Farfarello behind him. The Irishman's voice was lyrical and soothing, and he felt his rage ebb and turn to sorrow. "We live in a fallen world. Things break. Beauty fades. People die."

"It's all so wrong," Ken whispered.

"But it happens anyway," Farfarello told him, breath cool against his throat. Ken felt like just sagging back against him. He did so, and found himself supported. "People die, so love them while they're here. Beauty fades, so look before it's gone. You are letting things you have no power over drag you down instead of changing the things you do have power over. It is a losing battle, but these things, this fallen Eden, are not your responsibility. Let them go."

"But there are other people in pain," he protested dully. "My life's already over. Why shouldn't I do what I can to help them?"

"Lies," Farfarello told him. "Your life is not over. You are twenty-one and that is a ridiculous notion."

"But I don't… what if I don't deserve to be happy?" Ken challenged.

"There is the heart of the matter. You do not think you deserve it. You are the only one who thinks that," Farfarello told him.

"No. Yohji thinks so too. Once, there was this girl, Yuriko, and she invited me to go to Australia with her and work in a motorcycle shop. I was so close to taking her up on it and just leaving all this behind, but Yohji asked me…." He choked on his own words. "Yohji asked me if I thought I really deserved to have her. My hands were so stained with blood. He said I could never leave, because this is what I AM. And Yohji wouldn't lie to me. Not to ME. We're friends."

"Kudou has seen his hope snatched away so many times, he believes that all hope is false," Farfarello said disapprovingly. "You should have gone."

"Maybe I still could," Ken said dreamily. "I could call her."

"Then do so, but do not sit here thinking about it," Farfarello told him, propelling him back to his feet. "Act."

"I will," Ken said fiercely, turning to face him. "I will."

Farfarello handed him a dish.

Ken stared at it mutely for a moment, then burst into laughter and went to retrieve his towel, so he could dry it. "Are you happy here?" he wondered. "Are you doing what you really want to do?"

"Not yet," Farfarello told him, leaning against the counter and pulling the plug from the drain so the bubbly water swirled away. "But I am building toward it."

"What do you really want to do?" Ken wondered. "If you could do anything, anywhere."

"I have not decided yet," he said. "I am hardly suited for a great number of occupations, though recently, it has occurred to me that if there is anything I know how to do, it is fight, and by association, kill. I could teach others to do that. This is what Chen-shihan has told me."

"Chen-shihan?" Ken repeated. "You're taking martial arts?"

"I can kill," Farfarello told him, rinsing out the sink fastidiously. "I can kill a man in over two hundred different ways. But there are serious gaps in what training I had, and I lack control. These are the things I am working toward now."

Ken nodded. "Do you like it?"

"I have enjoyed the atmosphere of the dojo I have found thus far, and the people in it. Several of them live in this building."

"Are they friends?" Ken wondered quietly.

Farfarello paused and thought about that. "Some of them," he said eventually. "Yes."

"Do they know about you?"

"They come from similar situations. Yes, they know about me."

Ken nodded, smiling wryly. "That's good, then. I'm happy for you."

"I deserve peace, or happiness, far less than you do," Farfarello pointed out.

He nodded thoughtfully. "Okay. I get it. I'll think about it. Um… Farfarello? I know you said I'm welcome, but I don't want to overstay that… how do I get home from here?"

"I will take you," Farfarello told him. "I will drop you off a few blocks from the flower shop."

Ken nodded. "Thanks. Though… I don't mind," he said with sudden bravery. "Being seen with you, I mean. I don't care what they say."

Farfarello smirked. "Perhaps another time, when I no longer care so much for my privacy."

"Oh." Ken looked sheepish. "Right. Well, then, thanks for the ride, I guess. In advance. And for not murdering me in my sleep, as tempting a target as I'm sure I was."

"Not in the way you think," Farfarello said easily.

Ken blinked for a moment, then decided that he wouldn't be able to understand that statement if he tried, and let it go. "Ano… my clothes?"

"Bathroom," Farfarello reminded him.

"Right," Ken muttered, and headed off that way. Fortunately, his gear was dry. He ditched the comfortable pajamas reluctantly and pulled them back on, running a hand through his hair again. His claws were no longer bloodstained, and had been cleaned and oiled. He supposed Farfarello knew how to take care of a weapon.

"I'm ready," he said quietly, returning to Farfarello in the living room, where he'd settled on the couch. The white-haired man nodded and rose, padding barefoot over to one of the tables and lifting a set of keys.

The keys turned out to be to a plain, black jeep, and Farfarello turned out to be a rather decent driver. He didn't give Ken heart attacks, like Yohji sometimes did, and wasn't overcautious, like Omi. They pulled up in familiar territory after taking the most direct route. Ken knew Farfarello could easily have gotten him lost, but had chosen not to, allowing him to memorize the route they'd taken. It was a strange show of trust.

"Thank you," he said as he climbed out, eyeing Farfarello. "I hope you don't mind if I… well, maybe drop in sometime?"

"If I minded, I would not have brought you there in the first place."

"Er, right. Okay. Um… good afternoon, then." He shut his door and started down the sidewalk. He heard the jeep pull away behind him, and paused, watching it go. When it was out of sight, he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked the rest of the way to the flower shop. He had a feeling he had some explaining to do.

X-X-X


	10. Chapter Ten

He was right. Aya said nothing and Yohji merely glowered, but Omi was FURIOUS.

"We were worried about you!" he announced when Ken slipped into the flower shop through the back entrance. "What happened? What were you thinking, staying behind in that building?"

Ken blinked at him, then glanced up to see Yohji's cool green eyes fixed on him and Aya's back presented to him. He smiled weakly at Omi. "I wasn't thinking," he confessed. "I'm so sorry, guys. I just . . . lost it, I guess." His face fell slightly. "Sister . . ."

Omi blinked and immediately switched to sympathy. "Oh, Ken-kun," he murmured. "I'm so sorry about that. I know you cared about her. She practically raised you, didn't she?"

Ken just stared at him quietly, not trusting himself to open his mouth. Yes, she'd practically raised him. Like Ruth had done for Farfarello. A mother figure, a symbol of incorruptible purity, proven false. "It . . . it doesn't matter," he told Omi quietly, looking away. "She was a Dark Beast, right? So it's good that she's dead. I . . ." He swallowed. "I'm going upstairs now."

"Ken-kun," Omi murmured faintly as Ken turned and ascended the steps to the second story.

He wasn't tired, so he didn't sleep. He'd gotten plenty of sleep at Farfarello's. Strange, he realized when he reflected on it. He'd been so tired, and so emotionally worn out, he'd practically fallen where he was thrown, but normally he couldn't stand to sleep in strange places. How weird was it to feel safe in the home of a murdering psychopath?

He remembered the sight of Farfarello cooking breakfast, and smiled. A murdering psychopath that made good miso.

He stripped off his mission clothes and pulled on civilian ones, then went downstairs. If he wasn't going to sleep, or mope, he might as well work, he decided. The others said nothing when he took his place beside them, caring for the flowers. Customers were few – it wasn't quite time for school to be out yet. He found it was easy to smile, easy to be cheerful, and it didn't stretch his face as it had been doing lately. He felt calm, strangely serene. He knew his teammates wondered at it.

The flood of schoolgirls came and went. He took orders, wrapped them, and handed them out contentedly.

"Ne, Ken-kun," one of the quieter girls, Mitsuki, murmured when she wound up standing next to him. "Did you find a girlfriend? You look so happy." She blushed furiously upon asking him that, but he offered her a grin and a pat on the shoulder.

"Iie. I don't know what it is," he said honestly. "But I just feel like I could climb mountains today." He gave her a single sprig of flowering bluebell, which he knew was her favorite, and she lit up like sunshine.

They closed the shop as the sun began to sink behind the buildings, and Ken helped clean up, finding satisfaction in the simplicity of working with his hands. He'd liked this cover job when they'd first begun it, for this satisfaction, but he'd been missing it lately. When he was done cleaning up, he returned to his room.

Ken wasn't half the hacker Omi was, but he knew how to use a computer to track down subjects he was interested in. Finding Yuriko wasn't necessarily hard – her passport had left a trail behind her, as had her request for citizenship of Australia and several purchases made in her name. And a marriage license. That bit of information gave him serious pause, but he decided it wouldn't hurt to call anyway, just to see how she was doing.

He found her phone number and dialed it, refusing to think what Omi would say when he got the phone bill. The accented English was difficult to understand, at first, and a male answered.

"Yuriko," he said as clearly as possible, and there was a shuffle as the phone was handed over.

"Hello?"

Ken's knees went weak. It was her voice, definitely, and so full of cheer it made him tongue-tied. He pressed on. "Yuriko-san," he said quietly. "Ken desu."

There was heavy silence for a moment, then, " . . .Ken? Is it really Ken?" She sounded close to tears.

"It really is," he assured her, feeling tears threaten himself. "I just wanted to call you, Yuriko, to make sure… to make sure you're happy, and that your dream was everything you'd hoped."

"It is," she told him. "It's wonderful here. I love this country, the people, the roads. Why didn't you come with me, Ken? You would have been so happy. This beautiful place would have taken that weight out of your eyes."

"I can't really explain it to you," Ken told her. "I had people who I have to take care of and protect, and I can't leave them. I'm sorry, Yuriko. I wanted to go with you. I wanted that… more than anything," he finished in a whisper.

"I met someone," she told him, also in a whisper. "He's not as perfect as Ken-kun, but you can't always have perfection, right? We're getting married next month. Did you find anyone? Anyone at all? Please tell me you have. I hate to think of you being lonely and unhappy like you were when I met you."

"Not yet," he told her wryly. "There won't ever be anyone as perfect as Yuriko."

"That doesn't matter," she told him with sudden ferocity. "You wallow too much. Don't let your sad feelings overtake you. Be happy, all right? Search until you find it and don't give up."

"Thank you, Yuriko-chan," he murmured, deeply touched. "I'll do that. Please be happy too, all right? I hope he loves you and takes good care of you."

"He will," Yuriko told him, and he could hear the smile in her voice. "You find someone like that too. You need taking care of sometimes. Find someone who cooks that miso you like so much," she teased mildly.

Ken froze, feeling like a ten-ton weight had just dropped onto his head.

"Ken? Ken-kun? Are you still there? Is it a bad connection?"

"No!" he blurted out. "I'm still here. Sumimasen… but I do have to go. Thank you for …" he paused. "For not hating me. And for wanting good things for me."

"Thank you for calling," she said shakily. "I was afraid for you. But now I know you'll be all right. Take care, Ken," she whispered.

"Take care, Yuriko."

He hung up first, and the phone was as heavy as lead.

For a long moment, he sat with his back against the desk and his knees drawn up to his chest. She'd found someone. She was happy. He didn't belong in her life anymore, but somehow that blow was softened by knowing that she was not alone. Of course, he still was, and nothing would change that anytime soon. Who could understand his lifestyle? Who would be able to look at him with his claws out and stained with blood and not be afraid?

_Find someone who makes that miso you like so much,_ Yuriko had told him, and once again the vision flashed of Farfarello in civilian clothes, swaying slightly in front of a stove, making miso. The train of thought that connected those events was bizarre and he wasn't sure he wanted to be thinking it. He let his head fall back against the desk with a slight thump, and took a deep breath.

So. That was it, then. He couldn't go to Australia. Yuriko had someone else. But he was glad she was happy, he told himself fiercely. He was very glad. Better for her to have someone without so much blood on his hands. Suddenly, his apartment seemed far too small. With a sigh, he pulled his jacket on and found his wallet.

His motorcycle was waiting quietly for him when he got down to the garage. So was Aya.

"Where are you going?" He demanded. "You've been disappearing a lot. It's suspicious."

"To the book store," Ken told him, frowning. "Why? Do we have a mission?"

"No," Aya told him, advancing until he stood only a foot away. "You've been strange lately. Everyone's noticed. If something's wrong, you had better tell us. We can't afford the way you've been acting on missions lately. You'll get yourself, or one of us, killed."

"I'm not like you," Ken told him, angry suddenly. "I can't have one thing in the world that I focus all my attention on that keeps me from losing it. I don't have an Aya-chan, or an Asuka, or even an Ouka. Everyone I loved, _I_ killed. With my own hands. Don't lecture me. I won't stand for it," he told Aya darkly. "I'm not a child who needs to be scolded."

"If you're slipping, you should be taken off active duty. I won't let you risk our lives," Aya said stonily.

Ken swallowed, then turned on his heel and climbed onto his bike. The roar of the engine drowned out whatever else Aya might have said, and then he kicked the stand up and sped out of the garage, leaving the redhead alone. He drove for twenty minutes before he could unclench his hands on the handlebars, and before he remembered that he'd been going to the bookstore. Turning, he changed course for the nearest one and dodged traffic, pulling up in front of it and hanging his helmet on the seat as he stared through the glass front.

Light. Warmth. Serenity. He didn't often frequent book shops. Reading was not one of his favorite hobbies. There was a small coffee shop within, and a young man with a guitar was sitting quietly in a chair, strumming. He could hear laughter. He went inside.

At first he didn't know what he was looking for, but after browsing idly for a while, in wonderment that there were so many books in the world, he wandered into the literature section and froze.

The book sat innocuously with several others of its kind, abridged versions meant to be easy for students to write book reports about. Cliff-notes versions. He reached for it, innocent in its yellow and blue striped cover. It felt surprisingly light. Before he could change his mind, he tucked it under his arm and stepped hurriedly away from the shelf.

He thought a moment, then turned on his heel. _Might as well be damned for a sheep as a lamb_, he thought ruefully as he circled toward the religious section. But the display in front of him brought him to a halt. There were so MANY. How could he choose? He studied the covers until he found one that said "New International Version, the Scriptures in plain words". Yeah, that sounded about right. He picked that one up too, and browsed that section a little idly, feeling the weight and stiffness of those books against his chest. One author predominated, but his books were all in English. Ken could read English, but with difficulty. None the less, his hand found one of the paperback tomes seemingly all on its own.

"The Problem of Pain," he murmured. "Or, If God Loves Me, Why Can't I Get My Locker Open?" He flipped it over and struggled to translate some of the script on the back. It didn't interest him particularly much, but what he saw struck a certain cord. He'd added it to his pile before he even thought about it.

Abruptly, he realized places like this were dangerous, and took himself to the counter with due haste.

He slid the books into the compartment under his seat and resisted the lure of the coffee shop, driven by something, he knew not what, to get home and crack open a cover. He was curious, very curious, and it was a kind of curiosity that would not simply curl up and go away, he could tell.

He had a lot of reading ahead of him. He was a bit surprised when the prospect was not entirely unpleasant.

X-X-X

"I'm worried about Ken-kun."

"We're all worried about him," Yohji told Omi negligently, drawling around his cigarette. "What is it now?"

"I was looking through his records," Omi said sheepishly. "Don't LOOK at me that way, Yotan, he's been acting strange lately, hasn't he? I just thought maybe there'd be something that would tell me what's bothering him. There isn't much of anything save this." He tapped the screen. "He made a purchase at a book store two days go."

"Well, he's not a big reader," Yohji said, sauntering up behind Omi curiously. Omi knew that tone, and was relieved – Yohji had spotted an incongruence and was intrigued. "But that doesn't necessarily mean anything. He could have just picked up something he was interested in. It isn't a crime to buy books."

"I know," Omi told him solemnly, mouse clicking. "But look at what he bought. A Bible, something called The Problem of Pain by a Christian theologian named C.S. Lewis, and Dante's Inferno."

"That nun was someone he cared about," Yohji pointed out. "Maybe he's having a crisis of faith."

"Have you ever noticed Ken to be particularly religious? There's something else," Omi said, switching windows and pulling up what looked like a poem. "This is an e-book, a transcript of the Divine Comedy. It's in English, but you'll recognize this – take a look." He clicked in the search box and typed in a name. Yohji's eyes widened, then narrowed suddenly as the text changed and popped up, that word highlighted in yellow several times in the passage.

"Just the Bible wouldn't bother me," Omi said quietly. "But this, in conjunction with it, and that book about pain…"

"I see your point," Yohji said quietly. He drew in a smoke-laden breath and exhaled through his nose. "It's creepy, especially considering…."

Omi blinked up at him. "Considering?"

"Remember Ruth?" Yohji asked quietly. "She raised him, then it turned out she'd lied to him, and he killed her. Just like the Sister raised Ken, lied to him. . ."

"And he killed her," Omi finished in a hushed voice. "I hadn't thought of that. But Farfarello's dead, isn't he? The rest of Schwarz survived – we got a report on it, but he went down with the temple."

"I don't know," Yohji said honestly, fixing solemn jade eyes on Omi. "But that guy was more than just a man. They were right to call him Berserker. I have a hard time believing he could just drown like that. Too much symbolism, and symbols don't die easily."

"What should we do?" Omi wondered, staring blankly at his computer screen.

"Watch Ken," Yohji said with a sigh, "and drop Kritiker a hint to maybe look a little harder for Farfarello, just in case."

"He kills without remorse or hesitation," Omi said slowly. "He enjoys it. And his style is sort of hard to miss. If he was still alive, wouldn't we have heard something about it? Suspicious deaths?"

"Not if he hid the bodies," Yohji said darkly, turning away and heading for the stairs. "People disappear in Tokyo all the time."

Omi didn't like the implications of that statement. He bent over his computer and opened an e-mail window. Alerting Kritiker was a good idea. But, he thought, perhaps he ought to do a little searching himself. He didn't know what Yohji thought Ken was up to, why the man would be involved in any way with Farfarello, of all people. But Yohji still had a detective's instincts and Omi trusted them, for the most part. And Ken had been acting strange lately. Almost as if . . . almost as if . . . he was enjoying the missions.

No. No. That wasn't like Ken. Omi shook the thoughts away and began composing the letter. Something else might be up, but Ken wouldn't crack. Besides, hadn't he seemed happier today, more at ease? Though it was strange that he'd feel that way after the death of the Sister. If anything, he should have been grieving.

That was it, Omi realized suddenly. Ken wasn't grieving. The Ken who'd come home to them a few days ago after the collapse of the church was not the same Ken they'd been forced to leave inside the building. He'd been cheerful and serene since then, no grieving at all. So was he stuffing it?

Omi didn't like it, either way. _Whatever's going on, Ken-kun, _he vowed silently as his fingers danced over the keys, _We won't let you self-destruct. We'll protect you, even from yourself._

He clicked 'send' and hoped he was doing the right thing.

X-X-X


	11. Chapter Eleven

Ken remembered the Bible being truly boring, so he was surprised when he found it difficult to put down after the first few chapters. Sure, the lists of descendents weren't very interesting, and there was a lot of other boring crap that needed to be skipped, but most of the stories were entertaining, if confusing. He found himself already in II Chronicles after only a few days of reading, absorbed in the trials of Israel and their rulers. That was where he was when he heard a knock on his door. He set down his mug of hot chocolate and marked his place, then slid out of bed to go answer it.

Yohji looked haggard. "Can I come in?"

"Sure," Ken said immediately, confused and certain that it showed on his face. He stepped aside and let Yohji into the room.

The taller man took a deep breath and smiled. "Hot chocolate?"

"More where that came from," Ken told him with a smile. "Want some?"

"Maybe later." Yohji wandered gracefully over to Ken's bed and stared down at the cover of the book. "Never pegged you as the religious type, Ken-kun. And I've never seen you read a book that thick."

Ken put on a mock-affronted face. "Hey now, are you implying that I'm stupid? You can't have any hot chocolate if you insult me," he scolded Yohji mildly.

"That's not what I meant at all," Yohji assured him. "But I thought… well. You know if you need someone to talk to, we're always here for you, right? Well, except maybe Aya, he probably wouldn't care if any of us were running around in hot pink tutus, but me and Omi, we're here for you."

Ken laughed. "Yeah, sure, I know that, Yotan. Why, is something wrong?"

"Well, that's what we're wondering." Yohji sat down on Ken's bed, hands folded and elbows on his knees. His green eyes were calculating, and suddenly Ken felt a few degrees colder. "Is something wrong, Ken? You've been acting sort of strange lately. Running off to who-knows-where and not coming back until really late, picking up habits you never had before, this sudden interest in religion just after … and the missions, the way you shake before we do them. I remember way back when you used to always shake, but you stopped that for years. And then the Sister. I thought she was something important to you, the way you protested the mission, but then you showed up and killed her, but you don't seem upset." Yohji paused, and something seemed to occur to him, and he fixed Ken with a sharp look. "Do you have a girlfriend or something?"

Ken burst into laughter. "That's what the girls at the shop asked me," he told Yohji, snickering. "No, I don't have a girlfriend. The girl _I _ wanted to go out with, I let go to Australia without me. She's getting married in a month," he added, though he didn't seem upset about it.

Yohji blinked. "You know that?"

"Sure, I called her."

"You _called_ her?"

"Yeah," Ken said a little dryly. "You know, on the phone? They do have those in Australia."

"What did she have to say?" Yohji wondered, curious despite himself.

Ken shrugged. "That she met someone, and she's happy, and she hopes I meet someone who'll make me happy too. She's doing well, and forgives me for standing her up at the airport, doesn't hate me or anything, and she really loves the country she's in."

"Well, how about that," Yohji observed slowly, brow furrowing. "Why did you call her?"

Ken hesitated. "Just… something I felt I had to do," he said finally. "Closure, or something like that." He wandered over to Yohji. "I feel better, having called her. It's good that she's healthy, and happy. I was sort of afraid the effects of those chemicals wouldn't… you know… fade."

Yohji appraised him quietly. "Thinking of leaving us?" he wondered bluntly.

Ken couldn't help the flash of guilt. "If she hadn't… I was considering it, yes," he said boldly, arms folding defensively across his chest. "But just considering it. I wasn't going to run off anywhere tomorrow."

"Ken," Yohji said quietly, standing and putting a hand on his shoulder. "You can't leave. You realize that, right? You can't just run off, or Kritiker would think you'd gone rogue and hunt you down. And they'd make US kill you, for a security risk. If you want to quit, just talk to Manx and get her to retire you or something. Promise never to talk about what you've done with Weiss and I'm sure everything would be okay. That is, if you really want to go. We don't want you to go. We need you."

_We need you_. It was the same thing Omi had said to him, but Ken just didn't see it. He nodded mutely. "Thanks, Yotan, but like I said, I was only considering it. I don't know, I'm starting to think… I mean, I've…." He trailed off and shook his head. "Look, don't worry about it. If I ever decide to retire, I'll give you guys lots of notice so you can be sure to find my replacement."

Yohji sighed. "We don't want to have to replace you," he said. "I know this life wears on you. Hell, it wears on me more every goddamned night… every night," he repeated faintly, raking a hand through his hair, then abruptly pulling himself together. "Don't let it crack you, okay? Nothing's worth that."

"I'll keep that in mind," Ken said quietly. "You sure you don't want any hot chocolate?"

Yohji stepped back, eyes going shuttered. "Nah, no thanks. I should get back home, actually. Probably. See you tomorrow, Ken-ken."

"See you," Ken replied, letting Yohji find his own way out.

When the door shut behind him, Ken flopped back down onto the bed and stared at the ceiling for a while. Yes, he was feeling better than he'd felt in a long time. Since killing Kase, in fact. What could he attribute that too? The answer was unsettling, and also caused a pang somewhere in his chest. He tilted his head.

The Problem of Pain still sat on his bedside table under the reading lamp. It wasn't for him. It never had been.

Rousing himself abruptly, he yanked on his jacket and shoes and snatched up the book. He'd told himself he wouldn't go until he actually had something to talk about, some good reason, not just delivering a present, but he felt in his gut that he WANTED to go. Yohji's visit made him feel stifled all of a sudden, and he wondered if it was because he had a sudden suspicion he was being watched. Yohji had walked right over to the books, and hadn't looked all that surprised to see them. The way he talked, it was almost as if….

Well. He'd just have to take the long route then, and lose them. He was confident in his ability to lose a tail… he just wasn't sure he could do it without provoking some very awkward questions. He had some ideas, though, and by the time he got down to the garage, he knew what he was going to do. It would involve some walking, but he had a feeling he wouldn't sleep much tonight anyway.

X-X-X

"Interesting," Farfarello said as he opened his door to admit Ken into his apartment. Ken flushed deeply and tried to pull his meager clothing tighter around himself, glaring mutinously at the Irishman.

"My teammates are TAILING me, can you believe it?" he muttered, grateful for the sound of the door closing behind him. "I figured a crowded club was the best place to lose them, but they don't let you in unless you're dressed for it. And since I don't look like sex on two legs, or jail-bait, that takes some work on my part, okay?"

"I believe it," Farfarello said simply, turning and heading back toward the couch. Relieved that he hadn't chosen to comment further, Ken followed him. The TV was on, and with some surprise, he recognized the J-League division two eliminations.

"Who's winning?" he wondered. Farfarello settled back on the couch, drawing his feet up under him, and picked up a mug he'd left on the end table.

"The score is 3-2, Nagoya," Farfarello told him. "But Kobe was just awarded a penalty kick. They may tie it."

"Who do you favor?" Ken flopped onto the couch next to him, belatedly wondering when he became so comfortable with having someone so unstable so close to him.

"Neither," Farfarello told him with an elegant shrug, stirring and rising. "But I am being a poor host. The refrigerator is full. What would you like?"

Ken blinked, then started. "Oh! Oh, no, you don't have to get me anything, really," he said with a lopsided smile. "I'm fine."

Farfarello eyed Ken's shirt. Sleeveless, royal blue, and midriff baring worn under a cropped black leather jacket he'd loved for a year then tossed in the back of his closet for being too rebellious-looking. "A sweater?"

Ken laughed, and felt some of the weight of being under his teammates' suspicions lift. "Yeah," he chuckled. "A sweater would be nice. How is it that every time I come here you wind up lending me clothes?"

"Why is it that every time you come here, your clothing is either wet or entirely insufficient? One would think that by this age you would know how to dress," Farfarello shot back dryly, retreating into his bedroom and emerging to lob a dark green bundle at Ken's head. It was a plain, knit sweater of unbelievably soft weave, and Ken gladly stripped off the jacket and pulled it on over the embarrassingly revealing blue shirt. As he pulled it over his head, it smelled of pine needles and heather. He curled up and tucked his nose into his shoulder, savoring the scent.

He heard the fridge open and close and when Farfarello sat back down, he mutely offered Ken a beer. Nothing exotic, just Kirin, and he gratefully twisted the top off and sipped it.

"Have you always liked soccer?" he wondered as the commercials ended and the player, who was identified on the bottom of the screen as Ryuji Bando, lined up to take his penalty shot. He scored, and the game went on, tied 3-3.

"When I was a small boy," Farfarello told him, drinking his tea with the mug cupped in both hands, "some of the other children and I played soccer in the small field behind the church, but that is my only previous exposure to it. I do remember enjoying it then."

Ken stared at him, oddly touched and charmed by the image of little-boy Jei laughing and chasing a battered, peeling soccer ball down a weed-ridden field with a bunch of other laughing children. "You still remember how to play?"

He shrugged. "I remember the rules. But between the death of my parents and sister and meeting you in the park, I had not touched a ball."

Remembering the way those delicate-boned, scarred hands had crept in wonderment over his soccer ball, and the dawning confidence with which Farfarello had kicked the ball back to him, Ken smiled wryly. "I haven't played against anyone else in a long time either. I've just been coaching. But lately, I haven't even been doing that," he said, taking another drink of his beer to keep the mutiny from creeping into his voice. "Too much heat. There's been talk of abandoning the permanent flower shops and setting up a mobile one, selling in different regions."

"You dislike the idea," Farfarello ascertained.

Ken sighed. "I don't know if I dislike it. More like… I can't care about it. It's another way to hide in an endless life of hiding and running, only this time, all the familiarity will be gone. And that feels… I don't know, inevitable, really. If I am spiraling into insanity, like you seem to think I am, why should anyone help me avoid it? Let's just take away all the things that keep Weiss mostly sane and hasten the process!"

"I doubt that is Kritiker's reasoning," Farfarello pointed out with the slightest of smirks. "They are more likely attempting to keep you safe by removing you from established contacts and areas in which your faces are known. Since the fall of Eszet, Tokyo is too hot for assassins of either the misguided good or unrepentant evil variety. I have it on good authority that Crawford and Schuldig will soon return to Europe."

"You're spying on them?" Ken couldn't help being amused.

Farfarello shrugged. "I have my methods, and it is difficult for either of them to detect me, being what I am."

It was an opening. Ken debated for several long moments, then took another drink of his beer and went for it. "And you are… what, exactly?"

"A biopath," Farfarello told him easily. "Albeit a very limited one."

"All right," Ken said slowly, having the distinct feeling that the world as he knew it was about to be turned on its head. "What's a biopath?"

"A kind of psychic," Farfarello told him. "A biopath has control over only his or her own body. He or she can consciously control their healing, breathing, pain and pleasure reception, hormones, and glands. As I said, my abilities are extremely limited. Certain functions, such as my breathing, heart rate, and adrenal release, I can control, but others I cannot. My healing causes a quickened metabolism that exhausts me quickly, but I cannot stop it, and I cannot bring back the ability to comprehend pain signals. That is gone. Crawford theorized that the frequency with which I was exposed to extremely high doses of mind and physiology-altering drugs, as well as my own fractured mind, contributed to the situation. And the shock treatment likely did not help."

Ken winced. "They still… do that to people? That's barbaric."

"In many cases, it works," Farfarello pointed out. "It is unpleasant, but usually violent patients become sedate in the aftermath. It produces a feeling of relaxation and mild euphoria."

"You're kidding." Ken felt mildly nauseous.

"No," Farfarello said simply, eyes still on the television, where Kobe was valiantly fending off Nagoya's attempts to score a goal.

"Do you think…." Ken swallowed. "Crawford is right? That the drugs and the… treatment… affected your… power?"

"I am hardly qualified to say, but it is not important. In this instance, my biopathy is not important either. What is important is my second ability – that of Null."

Grateful for the change of subject, Ken gamely repeated, "Null?"

"I am a psychic blank," Farfarello explained. "I scramble other powers that attempt to act upon me. Schuldig cannot read my mind without my permission, Nagi has difficulty moving me, Crawford cannot see the future in direct relation to me."

"Like a radio jammer," he said with something of an affectionate smile. Trust Farfarello, really, to be the one to throw a wrench in the works just by existing.

Farfarello nodded. "Perhaps. It enables me to keep track of them without being detected."

"Are they still looking for you?" Ken wondered.

He was rewarded with the shake of Farfarello's head. "I do not believe so. They have other things to worry about – Eszet seeks revenge for its fallen, and they are the primary targets."

"Will they come after you?" Ken couldn't help looking worried, and frowned slightly when Farfarello turned to him and chuckled.

"Perhaps. But I am officially dead, so I should have some breathing room while they concentrate on the remaining members of Schwarz. I do not think they will care to look for me – they do not see the value in it, and as far as they know, I was just a vicious dog kept on more intelligent master's leash."

"You're a lot more than that," Ken said mutinously.

Farfarello sighed. "You are always kind," he said, looking amused. "Particularly to those who don't deserve it."

Ken frowned and raked a hand through his hair. "You're kind to me too," he pointed out. "And I don't know why. Maybe it IS my nature, maybe I can't help it, but what's your excuse? Just because we're so similar? You don't spare yourself anything. You experience things, even if they're bad. So why spare me? Claiming we're alike is well and good, but you act like there's something about me you want to preserve, and I can't figure it out, because all I've ever known you to do is destroy."

For several long moments, Farfarello merely watched the television screen, and Ken wasn't sure he was going to respond at all, but finally, he leaned back, curling against the back of the couch, arms wrapping around his knees. "That is a question I cannot fully answer."

"Can't?" Ken wondered sharply.

"Won't," he amended.

The brunette sighed, slouching and folding his arms across his chest. "Well, I guess that's your right, huh? But it's driving me crazy, just so you know."

"I will tell you," Farfarello said solemnly, "when the time is right. But it will be a long time."

Ken sighed. "You promise?"

"Yes. I promise."

He considered that a moment before breaking into a smile. "Good. I know you'll keep it. Oh, um… you know, I almost totally forgot, I have something for you." He flushed as he dug in the inner pocket of his discarded jacket. "I mean, I was just… hanging around in the bookstore the other day, and I saw it, and I thought of you, so… but I don't know you really well, so if you don't like it, please don't kill me."

"I will not," Farfarello told him, eyeing him with interest, head canted to one side. "Is it a present?"

Ken flushed more. "Sort of. Here." He held out the book gingerly.

Farfarello took it and gazed at it, fingertips brushing over the glossy cover.

Ken fidgeted. "I haven't read it yet but it looks interesting. I mean, what I did read. I know it's sort of an argument for the other side, but you like thinking about things like this, and I've never heard someone reason it out the way you do, so the way this guy talks kind of reminded me of you and I thought it might be nice to have someone of your level of intelligence arguing the other side instead of … well, me…."

"I owned this book," Farfarello said quietly, putting a halt to Ken's babbling. "Before. I was not able to retrieve any of my belongings from the old safe house. I'm certain they were destroyed to help cover Schwarz's trail."

"Oh," Ken said, looking crestfallen. "I'm sorry. I guess I should have known, if it was that perfect, you'd already have it…."

"I miss my books. I am pleased to have it back," Farfarello told him, folding the book into his lap and eyeing Ken solemnly. "Thank you."

Ken shut his mouth with a snap and managed a lopsided smile. "Oh. Er… you're welcome. I mean, it was just…." He decided to quit while he was ahead and fell silent.

Farfarello gave him an oddly piercing look for a long moment, until Ken began to feel extremely uncomfortable and a little wary, and then abruptly rose and went to one of the bookshelves, putting the book carefully in place with others by the same author. His fingers trailed down the spine affectionately before he left it there and returned to the kitchen for more tea.

Ken finished off his beer and stared at the TV set for a moment, then got up and headed for the kitchen also. Farfarello was waiting quietly for the coffee pot to heat his water – he looked incredibly relaxed, lounging with one hip against the counter and his ankles crossed, in gray sweats and a white t-shirt that hung loose on his wiry frame. He wasn't wearing the eye patch again, but Ken thought the bruise-colored, stapled socket looked less repellant today. He wondered if it kept trying to heal, frustrated by the inability to regenerate an eye.

He dropped his beer bottle in the trash can. In contrast to the serene silence of the kitchen, broken only by the soft bubbling of the coffee pot, his leather pants creaked as he wandered over to the counter to join Farfarello. The Irishman looked amused, and Ken scowled. "I told you, it's a disguise," he said, self-conscious.

"A disguise as what?" Farfarello wondered simply, smirking, golden eye narrowing.

Ken floundered. "A… a club-goer. Someone who would… frequent… clubs."

"And then frequent love hotels?"

Ken gawked. "Did you just…?" He spent several moments trying not to swallow his tongue and pretending his face wasn't radiating heat as Farfarello snickered quietly to himself and turned back to watch the coffee pot with rather frightening intensity. Finally, Ken sighed and gave up. "I just hope I really lost them," he muttered, leaning his forehead against the fridge. "Bad enough to explain why I came to see you anyway, without having to explain why I came to see you dressed like THIS."

Farfarello glanced up. "Do they think that of you?"

"Think what?"

"That you are an invert," he clarified matter-of-factly.

Ken snorted. "I doubt it. I mean, I've had girlfriends… well, TRIED to have girlfriends. But so has Yohji and there's times I have to swear he's bi, just because of the way he dresses. And don't think I don't know what I look like. Walking out of the apartment like this was hard enough."

"Are you an invert?" Farfarello asked casually.

Ken blinked. "Um… not that I know of. I mean, I've never had the urge to… um… kiss a man before." He flushed again, and cursed mentally, wishing he had Farfarello's power for just a few minutes so he could stop the damned blood rising to his face. "But it doesn't bother me if other people are. I mean… it's just a matter of preference, I guess, and who am I to tell anybody who to love?" He shrugged uncomfortably.

"If you fell in love with someone and that someone happened to be male, would you accept that? Or would you fight it? I find that question to be the simplest determiner of sexuality."

"Why are we talking about my sexuality anyway?" Ken wondered, flustered. "You're not gay, are you?"

"I have no preference," Farfarello told him simply. "People are people. A soul is not defined by the body that contains it."

"So if you fell in love with someone, and that someone happened to be male, would YOU accept that?" Ken challenged.

"I would, and have," Farfarello said easily. "That is hardly the most difficult challenge I would face in a hypothetical relationship."

Ken chuckled. "Yeah. I guess that's true. Wait… what do you mean, you have?"

Farfarello eyed him. "You think I am a virgin."

"That makes it sound so pure."

"I am not."

Ken winced. "Good to know. I'm not going to ask, so please don't tell me."

"Does it make you uncomfortable?" Farfarello wondered innocently.

Ken glared at him. "YES."

"Why?"

Ken opened his mouth, then paused and considered his answer before resigning himself to muttering gruffly, "because, if I've got the timeline right from what you told me, you were in an asylum when adolescence came around, and with Schwarz after the asylum. And I don't think anyone who would have slept with you before you were old enough to want it, or anyone from that team, would have done it because they loved you. And if they didn't love you, they were using you, and talking about it that casually is... wrong. I don't like it."

"You are so certain there was no love lost between Schwarz?"

"I heard them talking about you, okay?" Ken snapped. "There, on the beach, I heard them. Nagi asked about you, whether they should go back and find you, but Schuldig and Crawford just DISMISSED you. The way they talked about you, it was like you weren't even a person. Maybe you guys were a twisted kind of family, the way Weiss is, but my family wouldn't just dismiss me if they thought I was lost. They don't want to lose me. I wish they wouldn't follow me around and poke into my business, but I know they're doing it because they're concerned. Your 'family' didn't even give you a second thought, and I …think I hate them for that," he said with dawning realization.

Farfarello watched him quietly, appraisingly. "Why?"

"Because…" Ken waved his hands helplessly. "Because you ARE a person. You're so much more than you look like. You're smart… you're the smartest person I've ever MET, except maybe Omi, but there are different kinds of smart. And you have this … this philosophy of inevitability and it makes you so distant, but you're not untouchable, sometimes you come back, and you laugh and you smile, and you have a sense of humor. And you wear soft fuzzy sweaters," he said helplessly, "and you can cook, and you're never afraid of anything. Sometimes you're like a little kid and sometimes you're fire and steel and sometimes you're like a dire poet, but you're not a dog on a leash, that you are NOT."

He trailed off and caught his breath, watching Farfarello, who was watching him back with an unreadable expression. He raised his hands, then let them flop uselessly to his sides. 

"And I guess you're a really good actor," he murmured in resignation. "Because the only way anybody could see a vicious animal would be if that's all you wanted them to see."

"You do yourself an injustice," Farfarello told him quietly. "For all you say you are neither perceptive nor intelligent, you understand a great deal."

"I never said I wasn't intelligent," Ken huffed.

"You make what you think of yourself abundantly clear without the use of cumbersome words," he replied, brushing off Ken's protest. "But you never answered my question. If you happened to fall in love with someone…."

"And that someone happened to be a guy. Yeah, I know, I heard it the first time," Ken muttered, leaning back against the counter and folding his arms. His jaw worked thoughtfully for a moment, and then he shrugged. "It would depend on the person. I mean, if he wants to act all lovey in public, and hang all over me, and use stupid nicknames…yes, it would bother me. But I guess it'd bother me if a girl did that too, so I wouldn't fall for someone like that in the first place. I'd have to respect him a lot. We'd have to be…." He gestured vaguely. "You know, how a woman and a man are sort-of supposed to be dominant and submissive, right? Because they're different. At least, that's how they expect things to be in this country. All the girls I've ever gone out with acted like that, even the strong-willed ones. But if it was going to be a man, it'd have to be different. It'd have to be someone you could depend on, you know? Someone as strong as you. Or someone as strong as me, I guess, if we're talking about me. We'd have to be on equal footing. We'd have to be able to… work together and be friends. And act like friends, too."

"He would have to be someone like you," Farfarello reasoned. "Because you would feel differently keeping your life a secret from a man than from a woman."

"That too." Ken sighed. "The whole thing's just so complicated. Maybe Yohji was right, you know? Maybe I can't have a really good relationship and be an assassin. Because you're right, if I really loved someone, no matter who they were, I'd have to tell them, because it'd tear me up otherwise."

"You do not like keeping secrets."

Ken shook his head. "I hate it." He glanced up. "I don't mind keeping yours, though. I know it's important to you."

"Truth is important," Farfarello told him, lifting the full coffee pot off the hot plate and refilling his mug. He then gestured inquiringly with the pot. Ken nodded, and Farfarello got him a mug and teabag. "The saying that the truth will set you free is not merely a nice saying. When you can be completely truthful with a person, you are free to love them without reservation or fear. That person can truly know you, and only with true knowledge can there be real love."

"Have you been in love before?" Ken wondered, accepting the steaming mug.

"Personally, no," Farfarello told him. "I have not had much opportunity. But I have seen the many and varied forms of what people call love, and I have decided that most of them are flimsy props easily destroyed by strong emotions as changeable as the wind. In lieu of a better definition than they provided, I was forced to accept the classic one."

"The classic one?" Ken sipped his tea, pleased to find his tongue coated in the sweet tang of raspberry.

"First Corinthians chapter thirteen, verses three through five," Farfarello told him. "_Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs._"

"But that mostly tells you what love isn't, not what love is," Ken said slowly. "It only tells you how to recognize if something called love is not real."

"There is more," Farfarello told him. "Verses six through thirteen: _Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see as through a glass, darkly; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love._"

Ken swallowed, still for a moment, impressed by the recitation given in Farfarello's lyrical, soothing voice and the unfaltering confidence with which it was delivered. "That's… kind of beautiful," he said finally. "Do you really believe that?"

"Paul was a wise man," Farfarello said evenly. "In this, I think he was wholly correct."

"It says a lot," Ken said quietly. "That piece, I mean. About knowing fully, and being fully known, and how we see the world the way we are, not exactly the way it really is – how we color things when we see them, so we see what we want to see."

"Like a vicious dog on a leash," Farfarello agreed, equally soft, "or a simple-minded soccer player."

Ken just nodded. "Like that."

They stood in silence for a couple minutes, before Farfarello turned and headed for the couch. Ken didn't follow until he heard the TV shut off; then he wandered back into the living room and sank onto the couch where Farfarello was already curled up again. The screen was blank and black. Ken didn't care who had won.

"I don't want to go home right now," he said simply. The time for blushing and mincing words was past. The quiet was somehow perfect, peaceful in a way that brought a sweet pang of pain to his heart. It was, Ken thought, like lying on the beach with his friends on a warm summer night, staring at the stars that stretched away into forever and listening to the waves as they confessed things about themselves they'd never tell again, and knowing that this moment, this night, would never return. A pang of savoring, of the finite existence of something precious. "I never really unpacked. It's quiet. Not the good quiet."

"Stay here," Farfarello told him simply. "You here will make it good quiet."

"I'd like to do that," Ken agreed softly, curling up himself around the warmth of his mug. The couch was short, so his feet were only a foot from Farfarello's. "Just not being alone…."

"Reminds you that the world is still there," Farfarello finished serenely.

Ken nodded. "Yeah. And that there's more to it than just me and what I'm feeling right now."

"What are you feeling?" the madman wondered in a sing-song tone, lips pressed against the rim of his mug.

Ken turned his between his hands. "That sometimes you have moments that you'll remember the rest of your life. And you don't see them coming, and you can't make them, but sometimes you recognize them when you're having them. And you think, 'this is it, right now, this will never come again'. It's like one sudden diamond in your memories, something you can keep. It's like that now. I feel like I'll never be here again, never exactly like this."

"No," Farfarello agreed, "but the beauty of the diamond moments is exactly that – they are all different, and you never WILL be here, just like this, again. But you are always welcome here, and I will always make you tea, and someday there will be another diamond just as lovely and unique."

"That's true," he said quietly, feeling better. "So I can sleep on your couch tonight?"

"You may sleep on the couch, or you may share the bed. It is more than large enough," Farfarello said easily. "And more comfortable."

"You won't mind?" He found himself wondering what Farfarello would look like asleep. Would dreams erase some of the weight from his face and make him look his age? Would they lighten the scars? Did he curl up small or sprawl, claiming his space like a cat? "I snore sometimes."

"I will not mind," Farfarello told him. "You may do as you like."

"Then I'll stay," Ken said quietly, smiling behind his mug, inhaling the rich scent. "Like sleepovers when we were kids."

"I remember," Farfarello said. "Ghost stories and flashlights."

"And pillow fights," Ken offered with a grin.

"No pillow fights," Farfarello told him. "The grown-ups would yell at us."

"We're the grown-ups now," Ken pointed out, but smiled as he took a sip of his tea. "Fortunately, some things never lose their charm."

X-X-X

(( A/N: Passages taken from New International Version, for the most part))


	12. Chapter Twelve

Farfarello, Ken discovered, slept like he'd been wrapped in a straight-jacket and tossed carelessly in a corner. Back pressed against the wall, arms folded across his chest and knees slightly bent, he looked like a discarded doll. Ken fell asleep sprawled gracelessly on his back and woke up on his side, curled up and facing Farfarello, his head tucked against the madman's shoulder and his body brushing his in several places. Slow, even breathing ruffled his hair pleasantly. He smelled, Ken realized, like cool water and evening mist and heather, a nighttime sort of smell thick with mystery. He wiggled, pressing closer, and then balked when he realized what he was doing. One golden eye shot open, and he stared up into it for a long, frozen moment. Then Farfarello uncurled slightly and pulled Ken against him, settling down to return to sleep.

He was surprisingly warm. They'd kicked the covers down at some point during the night, or perhaps Ken had, and he pulled them back up before folding gratefully into that warmth.

"I'm surprised you don't mind," he murmured idly.

"Why would I?" was the typically simple answer, and Ken chuckled.

"I don't know. I guess maybe I always thought you'd hate being touched by other people. You know, having them in your space. But you're not like that, really. You like touching." He remembered a hazy day on the park bench, his head in Farfarello's lap, the Irishman's strong fingers meandering through his hair.

"'Like' is not precisely the right word," Farfarello said, shifting slightly.

"Then what is?"

Farfarello paused for a long moment before answering. "Hunger."

"Need?" Ken ascertained.

"Something like."

"Why?"

Those pointed shoulders rolled. "Who would touch a madman if they had any other choice? When anyone touches me, it is always to restrain me. I dislike that, so I fight it. But you would not do that, so I do not mind."

Ken swallowed and tried not to think how it must feel to be left alone in a small cell without light, too tightly bound to move, with no human voice to hear and no contact with people for days on end. _You would lose track of time, _he thought in mild horror. _You would go insane. _

He moved a hand tentatively and rested it on Farfarello's side, feeling hard muscle through the t-shirt. The sensation wasn't at all unpleasant. He let the hand slide down to the other man's lower back, arm draping over his waist. He felt the wild impulse to hug Farfarello, but decided not to press his luck that far, however much the man might inspire his sympathy.

"It's hard to believe they don't realize they're making things worse instead of fixing them," he said quietly. "You would think all these smart people, these doctors and psychiatrists and such, would realize that if they keep failing, they're not doing something right."

"One does not have to be intelligent to graduate from medical school," Farfarello told him. "That is a popular misconception. One merely has to be dedicated. Less so to become a nurse. Very few of the doctors I have ever seen cared at all about their patients. Asylums are not for healing. They are for experimentation and incarceration. That is all."

"How can you still be even slightly sane now?" Ken wondered. "Why aren't you tearing me apart? I would have lost it completely, I think."

"I am patient," Farfarello said simply. "And I can sleep when I choose to, for weeks at a time."

Ken sighed. "Farfarello…."

"Siberian."

He frowned. "You can call me Ken, all right? We're friends. At least, I'm your friend."

"I am your friend," Farf told him easily.

"So can I call you Farf? Or Far?"

He considered that for a moment, then nodded. "If you like. But not Farfie."

Ken smiled and snuggled down against his warm human pillow. "Far," he murmured. "That'll work. And don't you call me Ken-ken."

"As you like, tiger kitten."

"Who're you calling kitten?" Ken demanded.

"You," was the straightforward answer.

Ken grumbled. "I'm no kitten. Psychopath," he muttered.

"Pot," Farfarello sang with wicked amusement. "Kettle. Black."

"Easy for you to say, _Schwarz_."

"At least I do not deny it, _Weiss._"

"…That's it." Ken writhed free and snatched up a pillow, smacking Farfarello over the head with it. He was expecting a counter-attack with a similar weapon, not the ticklish caress of fingers along his sides, unerringly slipping up under the protection of the sweater. "Hey!" he yelped, lurching backward. Farfarello pounced, and Ken laughed wildly, attempting to fend him off with a pillow, but his only weapon was quickly snatched away and tossed cross the room, and he found himself sprawled on his back, hands pinned above his head in an iron grip, with the madman looming over him. That golden eye gleamed with triumph, full mouth twisting with amusement.

Ken sighed. "All right, all right, you win. But only because you _cheated_."

"The bad guys do not have to fight fair," Farfarello informed him, smirking. "It is one of our singular advantages."

Ken stuck out his tongue. "So now what, Mr. Bad Guy?"

He almost regretted that challenge. For a moment, something flared in the bronzed depths of that single eye that made his skin tighten oddly, something he wasn't sure he wanted to touch. The hands on his wrists tightened, strong as steel, and the scarred lower lip dropped from the upper slightly as the tension in that coiled body changed subtly. Ken found himself trembling and not knowing why, knowing _something_ was coming but unable to hazard a guess as to what.

"Far," he breathed, unable to keep his voice from quivering. "Hey. Let me up?"

He was relieved to see the words register, and feel the grip on his wrists relax. The madman rolled off of him and settled back on his edge of the bed, retrieving the covers and curling into himself.

Ken stayed where he was for a long moment, head spinning. What had THAT been about? He let his head fall sideways, taking in the thatch of frost-white hair he could see sticking out of the bundle of blanket, and felt something in him pang. He reached over and tugged at the covers.

"Hey," he murmured gently. "Don't do that. What was that all about?"

"I should not have frightened you," was the angry mutter, and Ken rolled his eyes, yanking the blankets away and facing the ferocity in Farfarello's eye without flinching.

"You didn't scare me, okay? I know you're not going to kill me because you told me you wouldn't, and I know you tell the truth. But you didn't look like you wanted to kill me. I don't know _what _all that was, and I'm not going to make an assumption, so why don't you tell me, huh?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because it is not the right time. This is an answer you should fear, and I will give it to you only when you are strong enough to overcome that fear."

Ken sighed. "Okay. I won't push you, then. Sometimes I think you need to be pushed, though," he grumbled, glaring mildly at Farfarello. "You keep pushing me. I hate it when you're doing it, because it makes my head hurt, but then afterward, I always find out I… I know something new, that I never knew before, and it… expands things. Somehow. And I'm not afraid of you anymore," he added fiercely. "Not even if you have an… episode, or something, I won't be afraid of you. So you shouldn't assume that I'll run away from whatever's going through your head because… because… what goes through your head seems to always go through my head sooner or later," he said, giving up and flopping back to the mattress on his face.

"I will wait for that day," Farfarello said, and Ken felt a light touch on his back, trailing down his spine. He groaned plaintively and arched into it, remembering how those hands could so easily touch triggers in his body and make all his muscles relax.

Then, suddenly, he knew.

He froze, eyes like saucers, unable to comprehend anything but the slow progress of those fingers down his back, not massaging, but petting. _'I will wait for that day,' _Farfarello had said, and his tone had been resigned, slightly wistful. And he understood, like a shotgun blast to the chest, what had been lurking in that tiger-gold gaze. His first thought was that it was entirely impossible. It just couldn't BE, he had to be interpreting things incorrectly. He heard his heart thundering like a galloping elephant, felt Farfarello's hand come to rest on the small of his back. He glanced sideways. Farfarello had tucked his head into his pillow and his eye was closed again. He looked like a kitten.

Every nerve and muscle in Ken's body was suddenly aware of the hand on his back, the slow stroking movements of the thumb, the light weight of it. He tried to speak, found his throat closed, cleared it, and tried again.

"… Far?" He hedged for a moment, then decided that his usual clumsy lack of tact would overwhelm him anyway. "Do you… like me?"

Farfarello was slow to respond. "If I did not, I would have killed you long ago."

"No," Ken corrected, exasperation giving him strength. "I mean, do you… LIKE me? Is that why…?"

"If I did," Farfarello said flatly, "would it bother you?"

"I… don't know," Ken said honestly. "I would have to think about it. I don't think so," he said gently. "Though I don't think I'd understand why."

"Love is not a thing that is meant to be understood," Farfarello told him, finally opening his eye to meet Ken's gaze. "It can only be accepted or denied for what it is."

"Love?" he repeated. "That serious?"

"All things are serious."

"Maybe with you," Ken teased mildly. "You're always so serious. Heavy," he murmured, trailing off as he remembered Yuriko once telling him nearly the same thing. "You should relax. I'm not afraid," he said, brow furrowing in confusion as he reflected on those words. "I don't know why. I should be scared, I guess, but I'm not. I…." He realized what a ludicrous thing he was about to say and shut his mouth with a snap.

But Farfarello was unwilling to let it go. "You?" he repeated pointedly.

Ken swallowed. "I… trust you. Crazy, huh? I do, though. You wouldn't… do anything. You're too… I don't know, I can't think of good words. I just trust you."

He considered that, then smiled faintly – a real smile, not a smirk, and it changed something fundamental in his appearance that made Ken's eyes widen – and snuggled contentedly back down. Ken felt his own mouth twitching upward and moved in, pressing against him like he had before and draping his arm comfortably over that narrow waist. The hand on his back slid up between his shoulder blades and flattened, pressing gently, somehow reassuring.

"I don't know how I feel about it," Ken confessed, tucking his head against Farfarello's shoulder again and feeling the taller man nuzzle his hair. "I really have to think about that, but it doesn't scare me, and I'm not going to be an ass about it." He paused, considering. "And I'm not going to avoid you, or anything."

Farfarello's expression was unfathomable, his gaze piercing, but Ken met it staunchly, refusing to look away.

"You're good," Farfarello said finally, a childlike tone of wonderment threading through his voice.

Ken blinked. "Good?"

"Good," Far affirmed. "There is a rock upon which every soul is built, the basis for everything a person is, their foundation of thought and action. Very few people are good at that level of themselves. Most are inherently self-centered. You are not. It is rare." He sounded slightly awed, and more and more amused with every passing second.

Ken felt himself turning bright red. "I'm not special!" he protested. "Besides, I'm not sure I want to be good, or pure, or whatever in your opinion."

"I do not hate goodness," Farfarello told him. "I hate false piety. Most piety is false, as you have come to discover, but you are not false. You are simply a good man, without effort or theatrics, one who tries to do the best he can, and it is rare."

Ken buried his face in the mattress. "Will you cut it out? I'm NOT good, okay? I'm … I'm clumsy, and I can't do what's required of me a lot of the time. I always let people down. And I like killing, that's not good, that's so far from good, and I AM selfish. If I wasn't selfish I wouldn't want to leave Weiss when they need me."

"You are good," Farfarello insisted stubbornly. "You have always been good. And what you have suffered, you did not deserve. That is the way of the world, but for what it is worth, it was not your fault, and nothing you did. Goodness trusts and you were betrayed, because God does not see injustice, or care."

"Forget God, okay?" Ken protested. "Kase…."

"Kase was not good," Farfarello said. "He was a man so wicked he betrayed someone who would have given up anything for his happiness. What he did… was NOT your fault."

"I should have…."

"Nothing," Far cut him off. "Nothing would have changed what happened. You could not have known or seen. The second time, you could have trusted Kritiker, but it is not in your nature to condemn another person. What happened had to happen, and you carry no culpability for it."

Ken felt tears well and shut his eyes against them. "But if I just…."

"Stop," Farfarello told him, hand settling on his head and caressing. "Be quiet. You were not at fault."

Ken sighed and just stayed there.

"You were not at fault," he repeated quietly. "Say it."

"I can't," Ken muttered, butting his head into Farfarello's chest.

"You can. Say it. 'I was not at fault'."

Ken swallowed. His voice cracked. "I… was not at fault."

"No. You were not. What happened to you happened because a wicked man grasped ruthlessly for money and power, and used you as a tool to get it. He killed you three times out of mere spite. He would have killed dozens more, but you were strong. You put an end to it. You stopped the evil."

"That evil was my friend," Ken told him, shuddering as the tears spilled despite his best efforts.

"That evil was a friend to no one," Farfarello told him. "A friend does not use a friend. A friend does not betray another friend. A friend wishes for your happiness, not his own."

"You're a friend?"

He smiled, and Ken felt it. "I am a friend."

"You, of all people," Ken said, laughing brokenly, but he squeezed Far to show he didn't mean the verbal jibe. "I'm glad."

"Are you?"

"Yes. Because you're strong when I'm not. Which is always these days, feels like."

"Everyone is tried at some point in their lives." Farfarello patted him. "You've endured thus far. I don't intend to let you fail."

Ken nodded. "I should… go home soon. They'll know I meant to ditch them. I'll be in enough trouble as it is."

"Breakfast first," Farfarello told him, stirring.

Ken laughed. "All right. I won't pass up you offering me food again. You make such great miso," he teased mildly.

Farfarello smacked him on the head with a pillow.

X-X-X

Ken kept the sweater to wear home, but it didn't prevent him from fielding commentary when he arrived at the shop.

Yohji wolf-whistled. "Nah, Ken-ken, a new look for you? Is that for the ladies or for the guys, hmm? Nice pants."

Ken turned red and flipped Yohji off congenially. "Butt out! I can go out for a fun night if I want to! Besides, it's not like it's the first time you've seen it," he said, hands on his hips. "Or was it Aya or Omi tailing me last night?"

Yohji threw his hands up. "It was Aya, and he lost you in Ginza. It wasn't my idea, so take it out on him if you're upset."

"I'm not upset," Ken told him, sounding a bit peeved none the less, "but what are you guys up to, huh? You're acting like I'm all suspicious, and I don't get it. Just because I picked up reading and decided to take some more evenings off, you think I'm doing something nasty? I can't coach the kids anymore," he said pointedly. "Kritiker took that away from me, but the stress of the job just keeps getting higher. I need to relax too."

"We're sorry," Yohji said, holding his hands up defensively. "Talk to Aya and Omi, all right? I was out last night too. And speaking of Kritiker, Birman called. She's coming over this evening to discuss a change of venue with us."

"The mobile flower shop?" Ken wondered, feeling his heart sink.

"Looks like it. They've got some sort of issue in the surrounding provinces and they want us to go traveling." Yohji removed the cigarette from his mouth and stubbed it out in the glass ashtray. "I think it's a terrible idea, personally. It takes more than a few hours to get the right kind of pretty lady into bed. My sex life is going to go down the drain."

Ken laughed, thwapping Yohji lightly on the head as he wandered past, toward the stairs. Yohji responded by giving his ass a light smack. 

"I say again, Ken-ken… nice pants. Didn't know you OWNED something like that."

"They're my old biking clothes," Ken explained. "So they're a little tight on me now. I don't go clubbing a lot so I had to improvise."

"I'll bet you got hit on a lot," Yohji purred, crossing his legs and folding his fingers across his stomach. "And coming home so late in the day? Come on, tiger, spill – who'd YOU go home with?" He leaned in and sniffed. "And don't say no one, you smell like miso."

Ken couldn't help grinning. "You'll just have to keep wondering, playboy. I don't kiss and tell."

"Boring!" he heard Yohji protest as he headed, laughing, for the stairs. Retreating to the safety of his room, he stripped off the leather and midriff shirt and pulled on a pair of jeans and a plain t-shirt, but after a moment's deliberation, pulled on the borrowed sweater over it. It still smelled nice, only now the scent of miso was, indeed, added to it. He settled on his bed, curling up inside the loose, comfortable sweater, realizing suddenly that if Weiss was going mobile, he wouldn't be able to come back and visit Farfarello for a long time. That was bad, he decided. At this point, it felt like Far was the only thing keeping him sane.

Oh well. He'd deal with it however he could. In the meantime, he picked up the Book and opened it to where a tattered receipt had been holding his place, and began reading once again, snug in the scent of mist, miso, and heather.

X-X-X


	13. Chapter Thirteen

(( A/N: This is the last chapter before we go full-tilt into the dramatic albums. There really is no way I can avoid paraphrasing some of the albums, since some very significant things happen to Ken in them, and this story won't make much sense out of context. So all I can do is reiterate the fact that I own NONE of the dramatic album material, and that I am not making any money off of this. In fact, I'm very poor, so suing me will yield nothing of value. If you want my head on a pike that badly, call me and I'll send you a full-scale replica. Also, my sincere thanks go out to all my reviewers, particularly those of you who are here telling me your thoughts after nearly every chapter. Even if you're just repeating yourselves, it does my heart good to hear that you're enjoying the story. I worry that so much dialogue and so little action is boring, and that the bits where I've inserted canon are choppy (due mostly to the lack of writing quality involved in the canon wink) and I love hearing how much you're enjoying the fic anyway. So, thanks. Thanks for putting me on your alerts, thanks for putting me on your favorites, thanks for giving me some of your time while I try to entertain you with a story both twisted and sweet. –Gabby))

They had one week. One week to clean out the new Koneko and get the massive van Kritiker had provided up and running. Ken worked without really thinking about it, mind a million miles away. He wondered if the people chasing Weiss were the remnants of the still-kicking Eszet, if those people would be able to find Weiss by anything they had touched, anything they left behind. He had no time to slip out and sneak over to the small apartment building tucked away behind an open-air market and row of family-owned shops, where Farfarello had taken up residence. His activities weren't mentioned again – he had the feeling Yohji had told the others to lay off, and he was glad. He loved them, honestly, but he'd been too old to be mothered for years now.

When they'd finally gotten everything together, Ken having abandoned most of the belongings least important to him, the Koneko was disparagingly empty. Kritiker had gone through and cleaned up after them, and the place looked as though they had never been there.

Manx surveyed the results with satisfaction. "You've got until noon tomorrow," she told them, Birman standing at her shoulder talking discreetly to one of the agents who had been helping. "Do whatever you need to get done. I shouldn't have to warn you not to tell anyone where you're going, unless you want to be connected with the violence that's about to erupt in Kyoto. This mission is of utmost importance." Her emerald eyes lingered on Aya, who stood stiff-shouldered, his katana having been stowed in the van already. He looked strangely naked without his weapon, but not vulnerable. No one would ever accuse Aya of being vulnerable. "Say your goodbyes. Tomorrow and noon, we leave."

"I don't have anyone to say goodbye to," Omi said a little mournfully, and Ken couldn't help feeling sad for him. He squeezed Omi's shoulder.

"I don't either," he said softly. "I think I'll go by the park one more time, though. I spent so much time coaching there. I can't say goodbye properly to my kids, but you know…" He shrugged.

Omi forced a smile. "I know. Go ahead."

"You're okay?" he verified cautiously, brushing a few strands of near-blonde hair out of Omi's face.

Omi waved him off. "Maa, maa, don't you worry about me. We'll be spending LOTS of time in the van together from now on," he said with a slightly exasperated smile.

Ken laughed. "We'll be all right," he assured Omi. "Get some sleep, okay? I can't sleep tonight, I'm too worked up. I'll see you guys later tonight, or maybe in the morning, I don't know."

Omi looked up at him solemnly. "Be CAREFUL, Ken-kun," he murmured.

Ken nodded, offering Omi what he hoped was a reassuring smile, and went to get his bike.

When he knocked on Farfarello's door an hour or so later, there was no response, but it was unlocked, so he poked his head in. "Far?" He heard the sound of running water and then, strangely, a female voice. Wondering what he'd walked into, Ken began to backpedal, but then the bedroom door swung open and a young woman came bouncing out. She was foreign, golden-brown skin and glossy, jet-black hair tumbling around large black eyes. South American, if his guess was any good. She was wearing black jogging pants and a dark gray tank top that clung to her wiry, athletic frame. She pulled up short when she saw Ken, but then grinned, showing straight, white teeth.

"We're just finishing up," she told him gleefully. "Wait until you see it."

Ken blinked, utterly and completely confused. "See what, now?"

"Some of the people who were looking for him have finally shown up in Japan," she explained, gesturing toward the kitchen and heading that way herself. Her Japanese was accented, but much more natural than Farfarello's. "So we're trying to make him a little more difficult to spot in a crowd. It's tough, since he's so obviously gaijin, and he doesn't TAN… he just freckles, can you believe it? It must be years since he got any real sun…."

"Ano… I'm sorry," Ken began, truly apologetic, "but…?"

"OH. Sorry." She smacked her forehead, then offered him a hand. "I'm Sketch. Gracie Sketch. Most of my friends call me Sketches. I'm from Brazil," she informed him with another gleaming smile, as he took her hand and found it to be both callused and strong. Her knuckles were scarred over from fighting. "Farf's a friend of mine, sort-of. We go to the same dojo. And you're Ken Hidaka," she ascertained. "Nice to meet you finally… last time I saw you, you were unconscious."

"You're a friend of his?" Ken repeated dumbly.

She chuckled. "The few, the proud, the completely insane. Yeah, I'm a friend. Yours too, if you want. Farf got me out of a tight spot once or twice, and he's the best sparring partner I ever had, so his friends are my friends."

Ken smiled, oddly charmed. "That's good. That he has friends, I mean. He should. So… what are you doing, now?"

"We're trying to disguise him," she clarified. "Given his looks, it's sort of tough, but I think we managed with liberal application of dyes and chemicals. You'll see when he wanders out." The sound of running water stopped and in the other room, something clattered against porcelain. "I wouldn't go so far as to say he looks like a native, but at least you wouldn't spot him a mile away in a crowd, like a beacon."

Ken had to smile. Yes, Farfarello certainly was… distinctive. "He'll never look Japanese. His features are all wrong for it." Not that he minded all that much. Farfarello was strikingly beautiful, even through the scars. A dead man would have noticed it.

"Yeah, I thought about trying to hide his eye color with a contact, but I don't want to mess up his vision more than it already is. He'll just have to wear sunglasses. I managed to find a color of liquid tan that makes his scars almost invisible, though. Change his wardrobe and you'd have trouble telling it was him." She seemed quite pleased with herself. "You just swinging by to visit?"

"Actually, my friends and I are leaving Tokyo tomorrow," Ken said sheepishly. "I needed to tell him I won't be around for a little while. We've got some important things to take care of."

She frowned. "That's too bad. I was looking forward to getting to know you. So were all the rest of us."

"I'll be back," Ken told her. "I just. . . don't know when."

"Kritiker finally implemented their plan to put you on the move," Farfarello said simply from the doorway. Ken turned, and felt his jaw drop open.

His hair, which had been growing a bit longer in the months since the fall of Eszet and the dissolution of Schwarz, no longer looked as though a child had gone after it with an inferior set of scissors. It had been trimmed into a common cut worn by many young men in Japan these days, short in the back and a bit longer in the front so it spilled over his forehead. It had also been dyed, not true black, but a very dark brown that was almost black, and looked much more natural. They had, indeed, treated his skin, and it was several shades darker, the bronze-tinged tan developed most commonly by Asians. Ken realized with wild amusement that he could see the freckles that Far had gotten from attempts at the normal method of tanning, but as Sketch had pointed out, the scars were much, much less obvious.

Without his eye patch, if he turned his head slightly, he didn't really stand out at all, but the tattered sweatpants that clung to his hips and thighs were the only thing he was wearing, and something about that made Ken swallow hard.

"Doesn't it look GREAT?" Sketch purred. "And with his sinkhole of a mind, they can't separate him from the masses with a telepathic scan either."

"Yeah," Ken said weakly, staring at that lithe torso, positively crammed with hard, sharply defined muscle, and covered in thick lines of scar tissue. "Great."

Sketch beamed. "But you two need to talk," she said, one corner of her mouth twisting upward mischievously. "So I'll get lost. See you tomorrow, Farf." She promptly removed herself from the apartment, leaving Ken to eye Farfarello with discomfited speechlessness.

Farfarello raised a hand and turned it over and over, staring at the new hue of his skin. "You do not like it?" he wondered, and it took a moment for Ken to respond, since his gaze had wandered again to that bruise-colored socket, closed with those tiny metal staples that always made him wince in sympathy, though he knew Far didn't feel their presence as pain.

"It's good," he said finally. "I know it's necessary. I wish it wasn't, but you are sort of… exotic."

"Understatement," Farfarello said with a bit of amusement.

Ken nodded dumbly. "I… uh…."

"Sit down," the Irishman commanded, and Ken immediately found a spot on the couch. Far folded himself into the other end. "You came to tell me you are going away," he said quietly, with childlike simplicity. "When are you coming back?"

Ken's heart clenched oddly. Though Far didn't really look or sound it, Ken was suddenly convinced that his leaving saddened the other man. Something about the shade of his eye and the timbre of his voice, perhaps. "I don't know," he said softly, honestly. "We have business to take care of. We can come back when it's done. They didn't tell us why we're going to Kyoto, so we don't know yet. It's something big," he said, feeling his stomach flip over uneasily. "Something important. I could tell. Manx and Birman…."

"When do you leave?" Farfarello inquired, bare feet curling under him.

"Tomorrow at noon," Ken told him, smiling fleetingly. "I would have told you sooner, Far, but we've been under close watch for the past few days while we packed up."

Farfarello nodded. "How long will you stay here?"

"Tonight?" Ken smiled fleetingly. "As long as you'll let me. I really wanted to see you before I left," he confessed.

Far smiled, and it was such an unexpectedly sweet smile that Ken gave into an urging that had been present for a long time, and surged forward to hug him tightly.

For a moment, the body against his was stiff with surprise, but after a few seconds, Far's hand came to rest tentatively on his back, between his shoulder blades, and his frame relaxed, folding more easily against Ken. He was so SKINNY, Ken marveled. He could wrap his arms all the way around Farfarello and nearly touch his own shoulders. The tanning chemicals smelled like honey and cinnamon, which was strange, but not unpleasant. He felt Farfarello's fingers wander through his hair, stroking gently, and snuggled him tighter.

Ken lost track of the amount of time they sat that way, his head on Far's shoulder, Far's hand in his hair scratching and petting. Though skinny, Farfarello was far from frail. He was solid, and strong, and somehow that was reassuring, the terrible power he could feel lurking in those coiled muscles, the power to tear a man open from chin to groin or to shrug off bullets. Farfarello was strong. Ken didn't bother exploring why that was important, not at the moment. He just luxuriated in it, listening to the slow, steady heartbeat beneath his ear.

"I don't want to go," he said finally.

Farfarello's voice was low and smooth, almost like Ran's in that moment. "Then, do not."

"I have to. I have a responsibility," Ken explained. "Toward my team, Kritiker, whoever's being hurt by events in Kyoto… not just anyone can stop what's happening now. They need me there, so I have to go."

Far merely nodded. "Then you must do what you must do."

Sensing a terrible fatalism in those words, Ken straightened and found himself nose-to-nose with the madman. "I'll come back," he said fiercely. "I will. And when I get back to Tokyo, the first thing I'll do is call you. Give me your phone number. Even if I can't see you, even if I have to sneak off to a goddamned payphone…."

His words were cut off, and his train of thought abruptly derailed, when Farfarello leaned forward and kissed him.

For a moment, he did nothing, shocked into tense stillness as that warm, strong hand, those delicate fingers, curled around the back of his neck to hold him and strangely soft lips pressed against his. He'd never kissed a man before and never WANTED to, and he waited almost in dread to be repelled and sickened, for the sensation to become singularly unpleasant.

It did not. It was a kiss. He'd had them before, but this one was so much more… soft, chaste, gentle, than most of those had been. There was no clumsy fumbling, no embarrassed giggling going on, no hungry and passionate claiming meant to simulate sex, just the brush of mouth against mouth. His breath fluttered, and he felt Farfarello's, warm against his lips. That golden eye wasn't closed, but it was hooded, the merest slit of rich honey showing between his eyelashes. He stayed there, quietly, not pressing Ken, just… waiting.

Suddenly, Ken was very aware of the warmth of muscle under his hands, the way it shifted and rolled as Farfarello breathed. He opened his hands, pressing them flat against the plane of Far's back and stroking down slowly. Far, almost unconsciously, arched into the touch, and Ken remembered how tactile the Irishman was, hungry for contact after a lifetime of confinement. They were still barely a centimeter apart, and when Ken spoke, his nose brushed Far's.

"Be safe, okay?" he said quietly, voice cracking. "Don't let them catch you. Be SO careful, Far…."

"I will be here when you return," Farfarello said quietly, firmly, and Ken swallowed as he nodded.

"You have to be," he said simply, closing his own eyes because he couldn't stand to confess this with them open. "There's this … this darkness, this abyss… thing… I feel it all the time, and I'm so close to it. Sometimes I just feel it there, and I know all it would take is one step, just one, and that'd be IT, I'd be completely lost, and sometimes it's so tempting because I know if I just take that step, I won't have to care anymore, I can be happy with what I am, but I'll love killing then, and I… it's further away now than it was before I met you, and when I think of Kyoto, I have a bad feeling that it's going to be closer than ever before, and if I fall, what will I DO…."

Farfarello's thumb brushed his cheek. "What you have to," he said simply. "I will be here when you return."

Ken swallowed again, managing a watery smile as he gazed into Farfarello's eye. "You know, somewhere in you, you're good too," he said.

Farfarello frowned, but Ken kept going.

"You ARE. You can be selfless, and generous, and even kind sometimes. It's just… only to people you … care about, I guess. But it's THERE. And I'm glad. You drive me nuts sometimes," he told Far with a laugh, "but I'm glad you care about me."

"Even if I push you?" Far inquired, a slight smirk tugging at his mouth.

Ken shook his head. "Nobody else does. All these things I never stopped to really LOOK at, you know? It hurts when you're doing it. It hurts to… think of myself like that. But after the hurting goes away, I feel like I can breathe easier, see more clearly."

"True love," Farfarello told him, "is wishing for the perfection of the beloved, wanting their completion, so that one's love for them may be that much stronger."

"I don't think I can ever be anything close to perfect," Ken said, abashed.

"No. But I can love the person that you are while, at the same time striving to help you become the person I know you can be."

Ken blinked. "Love…" he repeated, staring at Farfarello and finding his smile faltering. "It's that serious, huh?"

"Had it been less, I would never have mentioned it," Farfarello told him, and Ken had to acknowledge the truth of that – Farfarello had very little patience for the irrelevant or inconsequential, and he always seemed to know his own mind. If he'd just been crushing, he wouldn't have mentioned it to Ken, which begged the question...

"Far? How long have you… felt this way about me?"

"Since I saw the wounds you leave on your kills," Farfarello told him. "The rest of Weiss kills cleanly. A slash of one blade, an arrow through the heart, a twist and jerk of a wire, and it is done. Your kills are messy – eviscerated, mutilated by the very nature of your weapon. Back then, when I was still in the thrall of bloodlust, it enticed me that there was a Weiss kitten who would choose to kill like this. I paid attention to your file. I read of Kase and what surveillance had managed to collect of you and Yuriko. When Nagi hacked into Kritiker's database to get your files, I confiscated yours and read it cover to cover. They all said the same thing – Hidaka Ken is the boy next door, who loves soccer and children, is easygoing and good-natured, and remains remarkably sane even after all that has happened to him. But I could see that they were all blind, that there was so much, right in front of their faces, they were missing. There was more to you.

"The plot thickened and Weiss and Schwarz met, and you and I fought, and then I saw it in you – the ferocity, the bloodlust, something dark and terrible awaiting the right moment to rear its head. That is when I knew we were the same. And as I continued to watch, I saw you slipping closer and closer into the clutches of that beast. I did not intend to meet up with you that day, at the park, but when I did, it was an opportunity I could not waste. I wanted to speak to you outside the context of Weiss and Schwarz, and probe the beast in your soul. And you let me. And over the course of months, I was never allowed to forget how our lives run parallel, how you have felt the pain I could never feel. I would have let you be after the collapse of the temple, but you searched me out. By that, I had to conclude that you saw something in me as well, something that drew you to me even as I was drawn to you. And so, when your life came crashing down with that church and the Abyss yawned so close… you were crying," he said simply. "So I came for you, and brought you to a safe place, and took care of you. And again, you let me."

"And then," Ken said quietly, "you kissed me. And I let you."

"Yes," Farfarello told him. "And you heard the truth of my feelings toward you, and did not shy away. But now, I have done as much as I will do, and the course of the future rests with you. I will not push you in this area," he told Ken. "It is too sensitive."

Ken settled back to consider that, but he didn't want Far to think he was pushing him away, so he let his hands rest on the madman's hips as he chewed at his lower lip thoughtfully. "Everyone I love, I have to kill," he said finally. "Except Yuriko. She was lucky to be sent away. You're… at high risk for that, Far," he said helplessly. "What do I do if they order me to kill you someday? I mean, not only am I physically incapable of killing you, because I know you're much better than me, but I don't want to try. That night, at the temple, I was smiling, but I was screaming, because I'd… I'd TALKED to you, dammit, I'd hung out with you, and here I was supposed to kill you, and I hated it…."

"Then you will do what you must do," Farfarello told him. "And whatever choice you make, I will forgive you, because I know how it feels, and I know how much you fight with yourself over what is right and what is wrong. Whatever you do, you would not do to deliberately hurt me."

Ken stared. "Far. How can you trust me that much?"

"I know you," he said simply. "You are Ken Hidaka. And in spite of everything, Ken Hidaka is principally a selfless man."

Ken suddenly felt tears threatening, and swallowed hard. "I hope you're right, I really do. I don't want to hurt you." His hands, without his conscious direction, caressed those scars.

Farfarello stroked his cheek again, and Ken took a breath, leaning forward and nudging his mouth against the Irishman's again. It was not awkward or uncomfortable. It was almost painfully sweet, shivery-slow, as Farfarello's lips parted slightly and pressed back against his. He stayed there, just feeling it, so soft and painfully honest, a sort of sad gentleness emanating from Farfarello and desperate hopefulness from himself. If there was any safety to be had, he realized suddenly, any escape from that Abyss, it was right here, under his hands, in the form of a man who had already fallen into its depths and had lived to tell of it. And even if he did fall, he suspected, it would matter little to Farfarello. They would both be Dark Beasts then, but he wouldn't be alone.

So, was it possible to disregard a lifetime of influence and love him for that? _A soul is not defined by the body that contains it_ , Farfarello had told him, and on a certain level, Ken had to agree with that. He found that, more and more, he reached for Farfarello, and whether Far was male or female had nothing to do with what he represented to Ken. And as he found what he was looking for, again and again, it ceased to matter at all. And now they were kissing, and Ken had to admit, it was a very nice sensation, everything he would have wanted it to be, if he'd thought about it.

It ended slowly, naturally, and Far uncurled, and Ken found himself settling at his side, head resting in the crook of the Irishman's shoulder as Farfarello draped an arm around him. After a few minutes, Far's breath ruffling Ken's hair pleasantly, the Irishman picked up the remote control and pointed it at the TV. The DVD symbol on a blue background came up, and Ken glanced up.

"What are we watching?"

"Whatever is in the player," Farfarello told him unconcernedly.

Ken smiled and settled back down, even as the opening sequence and menu came up. Farfarello smiled, but Ken didn't recognize the screen. "What is it?"

"Dogma," Farfarello told him, sounding amused. "Be still, and watch." His hand trailed over Ken's hair, and Ken decided that he was too content to move anyway. He did as he was told, and felt some of the dread that had settled in the pit of his stomach ease away.

That was the first night he heard Farfarello really laugh. He decided that he liked it.

X-X-X


End file.
